http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6808
Bishop Williamson's Thoughts for April, 2006
Divide and Rule
Bishop Richard Williamson (SSPX)
April, 2006
It can be useful to watch a film. Some years ago I watched a film called “Michael Collins”, which taught me some history close to home that I had never learned, and which throws interesting light upon the present situation between Rome and the Society of St. Pius X.
For centuries Ireland suffered under the domination of nearby England. In the 19th century an Irish nationalist movement gathered strength until in 1916 there was an armed up-rising in Dublin, Ireland’s capital, which was crushed by the British Army. However, when the British shot 16 ring-leaders of the up-rising, national feeling in Ireland turned decisively against the British, and the Irish began guerrilla warfare against the occupying army. The resistance movement was so successful that it fought the mighty British Army to a standstill.
At this point, 1921, in place of the strength of the lion, the British resorted to the cunning of the fox. To end hostilities they offered to the Irish a treaty of peace, perfectly calculated to please one half of the rebels as well as it would displease the other, and to make sure it would be accepted, the British also put considerable pressure on a classic personal weakness of the recognized leader of the resistance, Michael Collins.
Sure enough, when Collins took the treaty back to Ireland, it split the Irish resistance down the middle, so that the fighting Irish stopped fighting the British, and began fighting one another. It was the beginning of the 18-month Irish civil war, which left scars on Ireland to this day.
To avoid that war, the Irish would have to have been agreed amongst themselves as to what Ireland really needed.
So what does the Society of St. Pius X really need? I just came across a prophetic quotation from a French churchman of the 19th century, Msgr. Gaume: “In these fearful times a sort of giddiness comes over the world. People lose their heads Words change their meanings. The best of minds cease to reason, and the rest go crazy. In the constant clash of contradictory opinions, convictions totter. As true and false become blurred, so too do right and wrong - hence frequent misjudgments and all too often, actions to be regretted for ever.”
This is a marvelous description of what is happening in the world around us. In his mad pursuit of freedom, modern man has thrown off all restraint – he would even liberate himself from breathing oxygen if he could! Grace being the savior and guardian of nature, then for a long time the Catholic Church resisted this madness, but when with Vatican II the mass of the world’s Catholic bishops accepted the principle of religious liberty, then all remaining dikes broke, and the Church itself was flooded with madness.
This is because religious liberty means freeing civil society, i.e. human society, i.e. man, from the true religion of God. Now if man may be free of God’s truth, what other truth will still bind him? But without truth, what is a mind free for, except to go mad? But if the mind goes mad, what use are any remaining good intentions?
During and after Vatican II, Archbishop Lefebvre stood firm, and he founded the Society of St. Pius X to stand firm after him. Logically, the flood-waters on all sides beat against the dikes of the Society. Logically, it is not there just to defend its own interests, nor only the fullness of Catholic truth. It is there to stop people from going out of their minds, to stop words from changing their meaning, to stop men from losing their reason. It is there to refuse contradiction, to re-enforce conviction, to distinguish clearly true from false and right from wrong, to prevent misjudgments and ever to be regretted misdeeds.
Even with all its allies, the Society is obviously facing here a superhuman task, but “Our help is in the name of the Lord.”
How he will save his Church and rescue mankind from their fantasy of liberation, is not our problem. On the other hand what the Society really does need is to hold all truth by preserving the fullness of Catholic Truth, in particular from contamination by its Conciliar enemies. That these are circling around the Society like moths around a candle, is a good sign. It proves that the candle is still lit!
Mother of God, Seat of Wisdom, pray for us.
+ Richard Williamson
