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The statement by Father Stefan Pfluger of the SSPX
An article published in InfoCatólica on Father Stefan Pfluger's statement reflects the direction Bishop Fellay has taken the Society of Saint Pius X during his twenty-four years as its leader.
Father Pfluger is the District Superior for Germany. Although his statement does not carry the same weight as a statement by the Superior General, it gives us an insight into the thinking of the Society, a thinking which reflects, at least in part, the positions once taken by Bishop Fellay.
When Bishop Fellay tried to reach an agreement with Rome in 2012, several priests and three bishops of the Society reacted strongly. Although these agreements did not materialise, some traces of Bishop Fellay's ideas can still be seen in the thinking of Fr. Pfluger, among others.
Fr. Pfluger says: ‘We don't want to separate ourselves from Rome and we belong to the Church’. So does Archbishop Lefebvre, more than anyone else. But Archbishop Lefebvre said what Father Pfluger did not. He said that he was fully committed to eternal Rome and that he refused to follow the neo-modernist and neo-Protestant Rome that was clearly manifested in the Second Vatican Council and the reforms that followed.
Fr. Pfluger is right to point out that we must not separate ourselves from Rome, but which Rome is he talking about? He is right to say that he belongs to the Church. But the current crisis forces us to ask: ‘To which Church?
Bishop Fellay has coined the term ‘concrete Church’. This seems to be a way of avoiding the question. If this distinction between the Catholic Church and the conciliar Church is false, why does Archbishop Lefebvre use it? Why then does he say: ‘It is, therefore, a strict duty for every priest wanting to remain Catholic to separate himself from this Conciliar Church for as long as it does not rediscover the Tradition of the Church and of the Catholic Faith’. (Spiritual Journey, page 31 - Permanência Editions).
There is no doubt that this is a mystery. How can there be two Churches? How can the Catholic Church be occupied by its enemies? I don't know. What I do know is that it is occupied. That's a fact. It is occupied and it is the strict duty of every priest who wants to remain Catholic to separate himself from this conciliar Church until it recovers the tradition of the Magisterium of the Church and the Catholic faith. It is easier to recognise a fact than to explain it. But it is foolhardy to dismiss Archbishop Lefebvre's observations. To speak of the ‘concrete Church’ is already to try to get closer to the enemies of the Church who occupy it.
Father Pfluger implies that the Society will do all it can to obtain Rome's consent to new episcopal consecrations. In itself, this request, even if it is made to a Rome occupied by a modernist pope, is not essentially a fault, because, even occupied, the Church has not moved its seat elsewhere. However, the example of Archbishop Lefebvre shows us that he did not think this request was essential. He announced in 1987 that he would probably consecrate bishops on the feast of Christ the King that year. If I'm not mistaken, several dates were planned. Rome then rushed to offer Archbishop Lefebvre the possibility of an agreement and the concession of bishops. Instead of asking for it, Rome offered it to him. The sequence of events is well known and can be found in the book by Bp. Tissier de Mallerais.
In 1984-1985, Archbishop Lefebvre told me that he was very reluctant to consecrate bishops without Rome's permission, but that he wondered whether Our Lord would say to him after his death: ‘You could have done it, why didn't you?
The question of permission is very important, but it is not essential in the state of necessity in which we find ourselves. Bishop Licínio Rangel was consecrated in 1991 in São Fidelis, Rio de Janeiro, by Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, assisted by Bishop Williamson and Bishop de Galarreta. I have never heard that permission was sought from Rome for this purpose.
Some priests in the Fraternity seem to have a reduced sense of the current crisis. Not all of them. Some are faithful to Archbishop Lefebvre. Some may think that the Resistance is sedevacantist. No, the Resistance is a disciple of Archbishop Lefebvre, who was neither a modernist, of course, nor a sedevacantist, nor an accordist. Archbishop Lefebvre is the Saint Athanasius of the Vatican II crisis. His solutions to the current crisis, his words and his attitudes are a light for all Catholics who want to remain faithful to their baptismal promises.
May Our Lady obtain for us the grace to be faithful to his teachings, which are none other than the teachings of the Catholic Church, recorded in its two-thousand-year-old Tradition. These are the teachings of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
+Thomas Aquinas O.S.B.