Do Traditionalists Reject The See Of St. Peter?

©Lucio Mascarenhas. This letter was sent to the CUA journal, Eutopia, but was not published by them. At that time, I had not yet changed my name to Lucio from Prakash.
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2003 17:10:41 +0100 (BST)
From: Prax Maskaren
Subject: Schism
To: Catholic University of America: Students' Journal Eutopia

Dear Sir,

I happened to find your page (letters from readers) at http://eutopia.cua.edu/article.cfm?ID=19. In replying, you had written that "All I ask of you and our fellow Latinists is that the authority of the See of Peter be fully acknowledged. The love of the ancient tradition of our fathers justifies neither schism nor separation from the Faith."

I define myself as a Catholic, that is one who excludes strictly the New Church sect and its antipopes Roncalli, Montini, Luciani and the present Karol Wojtyla.

From the teachings of the Catholic Church, taking Canon Law, Pope Paul IV's Apostolic Constitution Cum ex Apostolatus Officio and Pope Pius XII's Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, I recognize that Roncalli was not a Catholic at his 'election,' that he commenced a schismatic and heretical (even more precisely, apostate) sect: Roman Modernism.

It is a caricature that we reject the authority of the See of Peter. As a matter of fact we uphold it against the pretensions of the apostate usurpers who justify their monstrousities and impieties on the false grounds that a man who is purported to be pope is incapable of falling away, that his every word, teaching and pronouncements are infallible, and who, in general, misrepresent the Catholic Doctrine of Papal Infallibility to justify their feigned Papolatry; feigned, because they do not truly believe in any such idea - they are strict antiauthoritarianists - but merely use it to justify themselves.

It is also a caricature that in rejecting union with one, such as Karol Wojtyla, who has committed schism and who has separated himself from the faith, we commit schism and separate from the Faith. On the contrary.

I confess and recognize Pope Michael to the true and legitimate Roman Pontiff since his election in 1990, and am in union with him.

http://eutopia.cua.edu/article.cfm?ID=19

Dear Mr. Kent:

I am writing regarding a statement that appears in your Eutopia article, "Judicious Silence" (Jan./Feb. 1998), that is misleading and erroneous....My complaint against "Judicious Silence" regards the following statement made in footnote 4: "In many circles, the word 'traditional' or 'traditionalist' is indicative of an insistence on a latin-only tridentine rite approach to the faith, one that may include hostility to the reforms of Vatican II, a heretical Lefebre [sic] 'Pius X' catholic or even a 'sede-vecantist [sic] Pius V' Catholicism that regards the See of Peter as vacant since Pius XII...." In this statement I assume by "Lefebre [sic] 'Pius X' Catholic" that you mean the bishops, priests, seminarians, and religious of the Society of St. Pius X, as well as Msgr. Marcel Lefebvre, affiliated religious orders, and the lay supporters of [that society] and Lefebvre. Further, I assume that by "'sede-vecantist [sic] Pius V' Catholicism" you mean the bishops, priests, and seminarians of the Society of St. Pius V as well as its affiliated religious and lay supporters. Finally, I assume you mean that all traditionalists of the [Pius X] and [Pius V] "camps" as well as other traditionalists of similar mind are extremists and reject the Second Vatican Council. If my understandings are not in accord with your meaning, I would ask that you please clarify this....

I thank you for you time, and trust your haste in this matter. I remain

Yours in Christo Rege,

W^m. Christopher Hoag
Graduate student, Dept. of Church History

RK replies: I'm glad to clear up any misunderstandings in this regard. My portrayal of how traditionalists are viewed, as expressed in Footnote 4, is, I acknowledge, a caricature: a shorthand description of how they are viewed, not by myself, but by our friends/opponents in the opposite camp. I do not view the Latinists in a negative light, or as heretical: quite the opposite.

I am most sympathetic to those who love the Latin liturgy and I mourn, with you, its replacement by endless choruses of "They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love." As a practitioner of the Byzantine (Eastern) Rite Catholicism, I have come to love the ancient hymns of the East in Old Slavonic to precisely the degree that the Latinists have come to love the old ways of the West.

All I ask of you and our fellow Latinists is that the authority of the See of Peter be fully acknowledged. The love of the ancient tradition of our fathers justifies neither schism nor separation from the Faith. If we are to restore the true doctrines of the ancient Faith to the Church in America, we need them, indeed, we need all the help we can get.

Robert Kent
Lucio J. Mascarenhas, Bombay, India
©Lucio Mascarenhas.