"Appearances often come to us second or third hand, filtered through ever proliferating communications media, so that the so-called real world recedes farther from us every day."   - Solange Hertz

Editor's Note: The following first appeared in The Remnant on February 28, 2002.   In the fast-paced world of blogging and tweeting and texting, this article is entirely too long, too boring, too hard to read, too demanding, too challenging, and definitely too whatever to be taken seriously.  But I'm confident a few holdout dinosaurs still ambling about the real world will appreciate its unconventional and politically incorrect message. It was written by an excellent thinker, a saintly academic, and something of a prophet. She didn't blog, never sent a single tweet, and, while her face was usually in a book, Facebook meant nothing to her.   And yet even despite such crippling handicaps, she had something to say.  She also had the kind of courage rarely seen here in this brave new world of ours---the courage to be different and to question the modern world's most sacred narratives (what she called “fairytales for adults”) about who we are and what we're doing here on this earth.  I’m confident there are still readers out there who’ve been insufficiently brainwashed to read and appreciate the words and wisdom of the late, great Solange Hertz. Especially if you're younger than 35, I dare you to give it a try -- and let the blindfold be damned. MJM 

Sooner or later, anyone found actually trying to apply the maxims of the Gospels to daily life can expect to be told to “get real!”  as if living a spiritual life involved entering a largely imaginary world that  existed mostly in the mind. Parents of home schoolers, for instance, are sometimes asked, or even ask themselves, “What will happen to these children educated outside the mainstream according to Catholic principles, when they leave home and plunge into the real world? 

“You do not enter into a structure, and under superiors, saying that you are going to shake everything up once you are on the inside, whereas they have everything in hand to stamp us out ! They have all the authority." - Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre

Remnant Translator's Note - Father Gleize has been Professor in Écône since 1996. He was one of the four theologians chosen by the SSPX to represent it during the doctrinal discussions with Rome between 2009 and 2011, and therefore has first-hand knowledge of the Roman theologians in general, and Archbishop Guido Pozzo in particular. This article appeared in the May 2017 edition of the COURRIER DE ROME, a monthly French-language newsletter which was first published in 1964 and which aims to “unite Catholics around the Doctrine of the Church... [It] offers its readers a refutation of the principal errors of the day and shows them the path and light of the Truth” (www.courrierderome.org). This article was published on the SSPX's French District website, HERE. The subtitles have been added by the Remnant translator, who would appreciate your prayers for him and his family.

A “doctrinal agreement” – Two possible meanings.

In a recent interview, Archbishop Guido Pozzo declared that “reconciliation will happen when Bishop Fellay formally adheres to the doctrinal declaration which the Holy See has presented to him. It is also the necessary condition for proceeding to institutional regularization, with the creation of a Personal Prelature”. And in a press-conference given in the airplane during the return journey from his recent pilgrimage to Fatima (May 12-13), Pope Francis alluded to this document, finalized by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at its last sitting on Wednesday May 10. From Rome’s point-of-view, therefore, it would appear to be a question of a doctrinal agreement. The expression [“doctrinal agreement”] is, however, ambiguous and can be understood in two ways.

I’ve been debating with people over the main motives of the current efforts of the regime in Rome to block or dismantle all attempts to return the Church to her original Catholic course. Many have said, not without justification, that we need to follow the money. Certainly in nearly every case of a concerted attack by the Bergoglians against a Catholic organisation, staggeringly large sums of money are nearly always involved. Still, we can’t discount the ideological motive either.

But “follow the money” is never bad advice for a journalist. This week, our friend Marco Tosatti stirred up the debate again, when he gave us another fascinating glimpse into the Vatican’s ongoing persecution of the saintly Fr. Stefano Manelli and the order he founded, the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate.