Regarding your 11-10-13 letter: “Subversion or Tradition?”

An anonymous letter from the Catholics at .

Dear Fr. le Roux,

We read carefully your November 10, 2013 letter “Subversion or Tradition?”. We appreciate your condemnation of revolution and upholding the principle of the proper exercise of authority (as distinguished from the abuse of authority).

We appreciate the fact that you carefully distinguish opposition to liberalism, from rebellion against authority as such. You correctly say: “when the authority in charge ceases to be faithful to its role of guardian of the common good, it falls to the defenders of Tradition to remind authority of its role and to do this even publicly”.

By this principle, you correctly defend Archbishop Lefebvre (and all who oppose the conciliar revolution) when he/they publicly warned the faithful against liberalism and against the use of religious authority to promote liberalism.

Based on the correct understanding of authority, the Vatican was clearly wrong to object to Archbishop Lefebvre publicly resisting Vatican statements and actions, because the truth is/was on his side. Likewise, you should have no objection to anyone acting similarly, against the liberalism creeping into the SSPX.

You lament the “distrust of authority” in “the ranks of defenders of the tradition of the Church”. But based on your own principle, this is not the crux of the problem. Just as the dispute between Archbishop Lefebvre and the Vatican, correctly understood, was who speaks the truth, likewise, the correct focus of the dispute between the current SSPX leadership, and the Resistance, is who speaks the truth, not whether your authority is trusted.

Fr. Rostand has a similarly wrong focus regarding the crisis in the Church (and in the SSPX). He says that it is a “given that the crisis came from the collapse of Church authority”. June 2013 Regina Coeli Report. The truth is that the crisis is primarily and fundamentally an attack on the truth through abuse of authority.

So when you attack those who resist the current SSPX’s liberalism, you resort to name-calling. You call them “subversive” (for the same reason that the Vatican would have called Archbishop Lefebvre “subversive”). You say that the current SSPX’s liberalism is “non-existent and never proven”. Why don’t you address the countless specific examples given by those resisting the current SSPX liberalism? For example, there is an open letter to your subordinate, Fr. Daniel Themann, which is available on TrueTrad.com, on TheRecusant.com, and EcclesiaMilitans.com.¹ We challenge you to specifically identify a single error in this 41-page open letter. We don’t think you can. Focus explicitly on the specific points made! The dispute concerns the truth, not the lack of trust for Bishop Fellay’s authority!

You assert that persons resisting the current SSPX liberalism only give unsupported “opinions”. Notice that all of the liberalism analyzed in the Open Letter to Fr. Daniel Themann, came from cited SSPX sources. Those who expose SSPX liberalism need only the material which the current SSPX posts on its own websites!

So rather than complain about lack of trust for authority (as the Vatican complained, in the case of Archbishop Lefebvre), focus on the truth of the specific arguments and evidence raised by those resisting the current SSPX’s liberalism. See, e.g., the Open Letter to Fr. Daniel Themann.

Resisting the current liberalism is (as you say in your 11-10-13 letter): “far from being a knee-jerk reaction to authority, [but instead] is a service to and defense of authority. The opposition is only apparent, due to dramatic circumstances when those who have received authority from God are themselves influenced by revolutionary principles.”

We, also, want the road “of quiet dependence … [and] humble submission to the will of God” (to quote your 11-10-13 letter), and this is why we resist the liberalism in the current SSPX!

In Him Who is Truth and hates liberalism,

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