Fr. Z's Blog

Fr. Davide Pagliarani, the Superior of the SSPX, preached in French for about 37 minutes at the consecration of new bishops.  The English translation is some 2100+ words.   The English voice-over in THIS video is a bit loose.  The English translation is HERE.

HOWEVER… as I listened, Pagliarani also spoke about the Most Precious Blood of the Lord.  That part doesn’t result in the linked transcript.  I found a way to tease it out and I will include it, as is, after this precis of the released version.

I’ve been saying in conversations that the SSPX and Rome (the tight circle now around Leo) are talking past each other, as if they were speaking difference languages.  This is something that Pagliarani underscores.

A major theme is the inseparability of faith and Church.

Here is a summary for your convenience.

Pagliarani leads off saying the episcopal consecrations at Écône as a solemn, historic, and divisive event, but one whose meaning must be understood primarily as a manifestation of faith. He begins by thanking those who prepared the ceremony and those who traveled as pilgrims, then immediately frames the day’s central question: what do these consecrations mean? His answer is that they are not chiefly political, organizational, or sociological. They are an act ordered to preserving, living, and transmitting the Catholic faith as the Church has always taught it.

The speaker rejects the charge that one must choose between preserving the integral faith and remaining in the Church. He calls this a false dilemma. For Pagliarani, membership in the Church is founded above all on the integral profession of the faith of the Church. Therefore, he argues, fidelity to Tradition is not separation from the Church, but the very means of remaining within her. He insists that the Society does not seek a parallel Church, a factional identity, or a mere traditionalist sensibility. Its purpose is continuity with the faith, priesthood, Mass, sacraments, and doctrine handed down through twenty centuries.

Pagliarani also addresses accusations of disobedience or hostility toward the Pope. He insists that the Pope is loved and honored as Vicar of Christ, but argues that this love requires resisting situations in which the papal office appears, in his view, humiliated by being placed on the same level as false religions. He describes the conflict as one of language: the Society speaks “the language of faith” and Tradition, while the contemporary ecclesial establishment speaks the language of inclusion, listening, dialogue, and accompaniment. Pagliarani does not entirely reject accompaniment, but insists that it must follow the transmission of truth. The correct order, he says, is faith first, then Christian life, then accompaniment.

Pagliarani defends the consecrations as exceptional means proportionate to an exceptional need. He calls them a prudential provision for the future rather than provocation, challenge, or declaration of war. The reason for consecrating four bishops is described plainly: to secure the future, since the present bishops will not live forever and it would be irresponsible to wait until emergency conditions become irreversible. The act is therefore a foresight in service of the Church.

Pagliarani then turns to the new bishops. They are warned that they are receiving both an immense grace and a heavy cross. They are exhorted not to seek honor, power, or personal interest, but to disappear so that Christ may be known. Their office is defined in traditional episcopal terms: to preserve and transmit doctrine, sanctify souls, pray, sacrifice, and unite truth with charity. Pagliarani stresses that a bishop does not exist to manage an organization, cultivate publicity, or administer projects, but to lead souls to Heaven. At judgment, he says, what will matter is whether they preserved the faith, transmitted grace, and sanctified souls.

In addressing the faithful, Pagliarani speaks of their sacrifices, families, prayers, support for seminaries, and perseverance are praised as essential to the survival of this work. They are urged to remain simple, Catholic, humble, peaceful, and charitable. He warns them against controversy for its own sake, bitterness, resentment, and loss of hope. Even amid ecclesial crisis, he urges serenity because Christ has already conquered sin, death, and the world.

Pagliarani closes by presenting the consecrations not as an endpoint, but as a beginning. The future task is to continue forming priests, preaching, sanctifying souls, building Christian families, and handing on the faith whole and entire. His final appeal is Marian: the Blessed Virgin is invoked to preserve the Church, protect the Holy Father, strengthen the new bishops, sustain priests, and obtain perseverance in fidelity until death.

That was the sermon overall, but without the following:

On the feast of today, the feast of the Most Precious Blood, Our Lord very providentially expresses and summarizes perfectly the significance of these consecrations. He permits us to bring everything down to one point, to summarize everything in the Precious Blood of Our Lord.

He who does not know this Blood, who does not adore it and love it, does not know Our Lord and does not know the Redemption. And he who does not know Our Lord knows nothing and has understood nothing.

The Precious Blood is the unique remedy, the only remedy, the first and the last remedy for all the evils that afflict humanity. Why? Because all these evils come from sin. And the remedy for sin is the Precious Blood.

Everything evil comes from sin, and from one sin in particular. It is always the same kind of sin, from the very beginning until now: the exaltation of man. It is pride.

We are soaked in this today. This exaltation of man is everywhere: man as a wonder, man as seemingly perfect, man as seemingly possessing infinite power. In fact, all of this only pushes him toward pride. Ultimately, it pushes him toward contempt for God and toward apostasy, a silent apostasy. It comes from that.

And the more we exalt man, the more we become unbalanced, the more we become fanatics. We become far from God, and far from the true perfection of man. This is a disaster.

Man, full of all his rights, full of himself, becomes incapable of turning toward God, incapable of recognizing that he is wounded by sin. He needs redemption. He needs Our Lord. He needs His Precious Blood. That is the greatest evil of today, and of all history. It is the source of all the other evils, this disease, this excessive idea of man.

We have to recognize that. It penetrates very deeply. Unfortunately, even in the Church, this disease makes one blind. It blinds souls. It is not this that will bring souls back to God.

And so, by these consecrations, we want to do something. We want to continue to preach the Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. We want to continue, in a certain way, to spread and pour out this Blood upon souls.

It is in His Blood that Our Lord founds His Church, the new and eternal covenant, and there is only one. Whoever thinks that there are two or three covenants no longer believes in the infinite and unique power of the Blood of Our Lord.

And in speaking of the power, the value, and the dignity of the Precious Blood of Our Lord, we cannot forget where it comes from. It was formed, brought forth, and furnished by the most pure blood of Our Lady.

It was Our Lady who gave to the Word His humanity. It was in her most pure and immaculate blood that the humanity of Our Lord was formed, and that the Blood of Our Lord was formed. And it is she who offers it with Our Lord for us.

It is she who first saw the Blood flow from Our Lord’s wounds on the Cross. It is she who collects it at the foot of the Cross, who keeps it, and who still presents it at the altar. It is she who, at Mass, spreads these graces to souls.

She has understood the power and the dignity of this Blood.

What a mystery. What a mystery, this association of Our Lady with her divine Son, always at His side.

You can see how all our faith, all our religion, all our love, turns around Our Lord, because everything turns around this Blood.