As we reported last week, Alcuin Reid recently made the difficult decision to disobey his own bishop in order to obey God in conscience. As I argued in that post, it is our Christian duty to give Dom Alcuin Reid – and his bishop – the judgment of charity.
Some readers may not be too familiar with Fr. Reid’s bishop, and unfortunately my post last week may have given the unintended impression that His Excellency’s actions to suspend Reid were coming from an ideological hatred of Tradition.
In fact, His Excellency, Msgr. Dominique Rey, has been well-disposed toward Tradition and true liturgical renewal, including ordaining orthodox priests and celebrating the Novus Ordo as reverently as possible. He has welcomed to his diocese many Catholic “refugees” who have been striving to merely live Catholic lives.
If readers followed the post from yesterday about Cardinal Cupich as the new anti-Trad enforcer, you remember how Cardinal Sarah called all priests in the Novus Ordo to celebrate ad orientem a few years back, sparking a swift reaction from the ideologues in Rome.
Msgr. Rey was also present when Cardinal Sarah made that official call from his office of the Congregation for Divine Worship, and Rey spoke next at that conference, saying that he would lead his own priests in celebrating ad orientem even in the Novus Ordo.
That was in 2016.
Even before this three years earlier – the year Pope Francis was elected – Msgr. Rey was noticed for incorporating the Latin Mass into seminary formation. As recent as two years ago, His Excellency continued this good effort by restoring more Tradition at the seminary (including things like the cassock, striking fear into the hearts of progressivist-minded churchmen stuck in the year 1973).
So we have another bishop who is running his diocese… like a bishop.
In response to his efforts, some clerics of the older generation started a petition against His Excellency, which came to the attention of the ideologues in Rome.
Probably Andrea Grillo and his cronies were nervous about the power of a good French bishop.
Thus his diocese of Fréjus–Toulon – like Lincoln, Nebraska; like Campos, Brazil; like the SSPX – seems to have been in the crosshairs.
With Cupich coming in as anti-Trad enforcer, we now have an indication that the ideologues are targeting Msgr. Rey’s diocese to stop his ordinations.
Here is the official communique from His Excellency to his priests:
JUST IN: Bishop Dominique Rey of Fréjus-Toulon (France) has today informed all priests of the diocese via email that Rome has “requested that the diaconal and priestly ordinations planned for the end of June be postponed.” See original French email and English translation below. pic.twitter.com/ZaENdHcRvu
— Diane Montagna (@dianemontagna) June 2, 2022
Lemme get this straight, the salvation of souls is the law above every law.
And there is a priest shortage worldwide so the faithful are starving for the Sacraments.
And there is a COVID regime worldwide so that the Sacraments are being shut down by governments as harshly as Chinese Communists… with the tacit or enthusiastic support of Rome.
Not only that, the bishops are the “guardians of Tradition” (traditionis custodes) to feed their flock including ordaining good men to be priests in our dire need.
And Rome thinks it has the right to stop ordinations in a diocese… for what reason exactly? What is the grave cause that would prevent the “progress” of the salvation of souls?
Don’t these people care about progress? Like more priests?
The statement cites “the restructuring of the seminary and the policy of welcoming people to the diocese.”
Wait… he didn’t cover up abuse like the Cardinals who currently wear the red hat? He didn’t launder money and make corrupt deals with sexually immoral priests? He didn’t promote heresy and kneel down before the Prince of this world?
No, he was making his seminarians wear the cassock and welcoming refugee Catholics into his diocese.
Does that sound like a grave offence which would require decapitating a bishop from begetting sons in the Gospel? (I Cor. iv. 15)
We’ve seen this tactic before again and again – most conspicuously with the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, as documented in Sire’s Dictator Pope. Once bishops, priests, orders start to act too Catholic, they get targeted under the Dictator Pope Regime.
As we know from the history of dioceses like the aforementioned Lincoln and Campos, this crisis will not get better until Bishops actually implement (wait for it)… Lumen Gentium in their own diocese on this point. This text said something surprisingly traditional to a climate (then and now) of hyperüberultramontanism:
The pastoral office or the habitual and daily care of their sheep is entrusted to them completely; nor are they to be regarded as vicars of the Roman Pontiffs, for they exercise an authority that is proper to them, and are quite correctly called ‘prelates,’ heads of the people whom they govern. Their power, therefore, is not destroyed by the supreme and universal power, but on the contrary it is affirmed, strengthened and vindicated by it, since the Holy Spirit unfailingly preserves the form of government established by Christ the Lord in His Church (27).
Instead, in the case of Msgr. Rey (unless we receive some new information that proves a manifestly grave cause justified such an unjust action from Rome) the supreme power of the Vatican has indeed “destroyed” the power of this bishop to ordain his own priests. Every bishop should fear the judgment of Christ more than the judgment of the Pope.
This is what His Excellency Cordileone has recently done, by acting in conscience in defence of the unborn children.
There are very few things more terrifying to the fallen angels than a bishop acting like a bishop. That’s why their pawns in the Vatican will shriek with rage at every bishop who does his duty before God.
We pray also that Msgr. Rey be given the fortitude to act as a good shepherd, to lay down his life for the sheep, and not flee from the wolves.
If bishops don’t fight Rome on this and other such ideologies, they are acting like “vicars of the Roman Pontiff” instead of bishops. This is the problem of hyperüberultramontanism. Stay tuned for more on this tomorrow.
