"Double Standard" Update

Another Traditionalist Priest "Suspended"

by Christopher A. Ferrara

        As the collapse of faith and discipline throughout the establishment Church continues, yet another priest has been "suspended" for the only offense that still seems to matter to post-conciliar prelates: an adherence to the traditions of the Church. As reported by the Remnant, the cardinal archbishop of Toronto, Aloysius Cardinal Ambrozic, has "suspended" Father Stephen Somerville solely on the grounds of "disobedience" in offering the traditional Latin Mass at chapels maintained by the Society of St. Pius X.

        This is the same Father Somerville who served as chaplain to Mel Gibson during his filming of "The Passion of the Christ". It was Father Somerville who published the already justly famous "Open Letter to the Church" in which he renounced his involvement with the International Commission on English Liturgy (ICEL), which was responsible for the abominable translation of the Novus Ordo Mass into English. As Father Somerville declared in his open letter: "I am a priest who for over ten years collaborated in a work that became a notable harm to the Catholic faith. I wish now to apologize before God and the Church and to renounce decisively my personal sharing in that damaging project."

        In short, in the eyes of the post-conciliar ecclesial establishment — the same gang that gave us altar girls and the homosexual priest scandal cover-up — Father Somerville is an arch-heretic.

        So, in the midst of the growing crisis of a priest shortage, as the result of which entire regions of the Church will soon be without priests, yet another faithful, traditional priest has been "suspended" — for nothing more than his insistence upon providing to the faithful the received and approved rite of Mass in the Church, which even Pope John Paul II has decreed must be generously permitted by local bishops.

        It is hardly a coincidence that Cardinal Ambrozic has also targeted Father Nicholas Gruner for public denunciations and "warnings" issued through his chancery office. Here too, we are dealing with a dangerous subversive: a priest who has kept his vows and maintains a strict adherence to the traditions he received at the time of his ordination.

        And so the double standard goes in the post-conciliar church: coddling and protection for heretics and sexual predators, "suspensions" for militant and traditional priests. May Our Lady of Fatima intercede for the restoration of the Church, that we might live to see the day when, once again, the Church’s defenders are rewarded and Her enemies punished.