The bishop and the preacher seem unable to become friends.

Let us consider the Bishop Lopes-Fr. Treco exchanges beginning with the day after the first chancery meeting weeks before the closing down of his role as pastor and preacher.

December 13, Second Chancery Meeting, Fr. T.:

I met again with Bishop Lopes, Fr. Perkins, and Fr. Kramer. The fruit of my night in prayer was the conviction that my next step should be to offer a personal Profession of Faith so that the bishop would have a clearer sense of my mind. Bishop Lopes concurred.

As this brief meeting was winding down, Bishop Lopes made one or two comments which I thought were disparaging to those he referred to as traditionalists.

Almost certainly this was the case, as regards the disparaging part. . . .

Tales of the excommunicated preacher continued . . .

In most cases, no, this writer says. However:

Fauci draws more than his share of ire because he has been the most visible face of the “official” response to the epidemic. He stands or sits there with a sanctimonious expression on his face and this mild, reasonable tone of voice, and spews an endless stew of misstatements and lies.

The lifelong bureaucrat in action — never really accomplished anything — survives by being politically adept. If such bureaucrats don’t start out as incompetent in their field, they quickly get the knack of it. In government it isn’t what you know, it is who you know and how much cow manure you can spread while blaming everyone else for the odor.

Precisely. Indeed, I noted his survival in the Beast many months ago in many ways. Oh, and yes, I looked out the window and saw it was raining and I told someone it was raining, I’m soooo smart.

Came by to say hello.

A visiting member of another parish showed up on the fateful day.

This man, a local attorney, and his wife had been attending St. Bede the Venerable for a year and a half. It was “a very small parish” without its own building and having to rent space from another parish. 

He’d “been trying to get his Episcopalian friends to attend there in the hope that they [would] eventually convert.” He was drawn particularly by the pastor, Fr. Vaughn Treco, who he said “speaks plainly and to the point; much better than most other priests [he’d] heard or met.”

On the evening in question, he and his wife showed up for mass, but Fr. Treco was nowhere to be seen.  Instead, another priest [see below] was presiding. 

At the end of the mass, the priest made an announcement, indicating that as of yesterday, Fr. Treco had been relieved of his duties as pastor of St. Bede’s, with [this other] priest being appointed interim pastor. 

We were told that Fr. Treco had been removed because of the sermon he gave on The Feast of Christ the King . . . November 25 of last year.  This sermon was published by The Remnant Video on YouTube, which can be found here: VATICAN REVOLUTION: Diocesan Priest’s Had Enough

We were told that Fr. Treco was visited by Bishop Stephen Lopes, who essentially provided Fr Treco with the option of renouncing what he had said in the sermon (Fr. Treco declined) or be removed as pastor, when he would have to take… wait for it…. further education classes so that he could better understand the post-[Vatican 2] church.

We were also told, though, that Fr. Treco is free to continue as priest for St. Bede, even presiding over mass, just as long as he (a) does not deliver sermons or (b) has his sermons reviewed and signed off by [this] priest prior to any such delivery.

From a regular:

As I was vesting and preparing to serve at the altar of God on January 20, 2019, I noted that Fr. Treco was absent. In his place was Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson, ordinary emeritus of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, who has served as a substitute on a number of occasions when Fr. Treco needed to be absent.

Despite our familiarity with Msgr. Steenson, something about his being there felt off. I looked at our weekly bulletin and saw that Fr. Treco’s email and phone number were no longer there and that there was a notice that read that “daily Masses are cancelled until further notice.”

At the end of Mass, Msgr. Steenson read a letter from our bishop, His Excellency Steven Lopes. The bishop explained that the November homily — the one that had gained so much attention for its unflinching evaluation of the crisis [inflicting the church] — was, in fact, the reason for his removal.

Further, the bishop explained, the homily was contrary to the teaching of the Church — he did not explain how — and that, even after a personal meeting in Houston between himself and Father Treco, Father refused to recant what he had said. The bishop’s letter then announced that Fr. Treco has been removed as parochial administrator of the Church of St. Bede and that Msgr. Steenson had been assigned as parochial administrator pro tempore.

End of sad day at church.

More to come of ins and outs and surrounding realities of this pastor-removal process in the American church and where it fits into a strange sequence of which this episode is a salient example.

The not yet excommunicated Fr. Vaughn Treco was ordered on December 11 to come to Houston for what turned out to be an unfriendly discussion with his bishop and two of his assistants that was to uncover a few violations of homiletic protocol but no heresy. A sparring match with no decision.

Here is Fr. Treco’s account  of the meeting of Wednesday, December 12th, 2018, edited for conciseness and clarification, with scattered commentary,.

Led into a conference room with a long table, he found himself standing before three men, seated, none of whom stood to greet him or shake his hand. One pointed to a seat opposite them.

They were the bishop, Steven J. Lopes, and Fathers Timothy Perkins, vicar general, and Richard Kramer, moderator of the curia and director of vocations and clergy formation for the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, the organization of Anglicans who come over to Roman Catholicism.

The bishop led them in prayer, then said how the meeting would go. Fathers Perkins and Kramer would address the suspect-defendant, followed by the bishop. Each would “demonstrate the heretical character” of the November 25 homily. A forlorn hope, as matters developed.

Fr. Perkins began with a critique of the passage from Ezekiel as used throughout the homily — “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge” — noting (“correctly,” said Fr. Treco),  that it was intended to dispel the belief that children are held guilty for the sins of their fathers.

Fr. Treco, however, said his questioner was ignoring “the poetic manner” in which he had used the text, describing how “the Fathers of the Church” — popes and bishops — had failed “to be diligent in their duty to guard the Faith” and how this failure had “a deleterious effect” on “the children of Holy Mother Church.”

Fr. Perkins asked what translation “was authorized for liturgical use” by priests of the Ordinariate, as it were building a case. Fr. Treco named the translation, Fr. Perkins asked, “Why did you choose not to use this translation when you quoted from the sacred texts?”

To provide “a more poetically satisfying” rendering of the texts he was using, Fr. Treco explained.

Fr. Perkins continued: Why had Fr. Treco used the “collect” prayer as established by Pope Pius XI rather than the currently approved one?

Perhaps chafing at the pace of interrogation,  the second examiner, Fr. Kramer, interrupted and began his own “presentation” before Fr. Treco could reply.

Taking another tack, he observed that Fr. Treco had “a robust Internet presence,” referring to the posting of his homily on a major traditionalist site. “Did you know that?” he asked.

He was “not aware of this,” Fr. Treco replied. “I simply post things to the web” but “do not follow discussions [of] the post.”

Fr. Kramer continued. “Did you know that more than 20,000 (33,000 at a later date) people have viewed your homily?”

Fr. Treco said he did not.

Fr. Kramer said several hundred viewers had left comments. He quoted one of them: “Finally, a priest who gets it.”

“Do you get it?” Fr. Kramer asked.

“I am not sure I know what the writer meant by ‘it’,” Fr. Treco said.

Later came the heretical nub of the matter, when Fr. Treco was asked by one of the three — he did not recall whom — if he thought the popes since Pius XII were legitimate popes.

“Quite honestly,” he wrote in this account, “I was taken completely off-guard by the question,” which “seemed quite unrelated to anything that had been said in the meeting thus far” and was “completely unrelated to the substance of my homily.”

In any case, he “affirmed without hesitation” that he believed that those popes “were each validly elected successors of Saint Peter.”

He might additionally have noted his implicit acknowledgement of this belief within his homily in his fanciful presentation of several of them as “Peter” in a litany of condemnations of things they did without ever raising the specter of illegitimacy. Nor did he in any way urge his listeners to adopt this belief.

“Feeling somewhat disoriented by the tangential character” of the questioning, he did not recall much of what the bishop said, only to notice “random, disconnected comments,” including his saying “early in the meeting, perhaps even at the very beginning, that he was surprised that Fr. Treco had not come to this meeting with his letter of resignation. 

What on earth? He was to knuckle under at the very hint of accusation, just shut up and fade away?

What’s missing here is any attempt to verify the heresy charge. Fr. Treco denied it, as we saw. In any case, as the meeting drew to  close, he it might be good for him to spend the evening in prayer.

Bishop Lopes had Fr. Perkins give him a copy of the Profession of Faith and Oath of Fidelity which he had signed before his ordination. He said he’d be praying for him and would offer his morning Mass for him. He closed the session in prayer. When he stood, the accused “knelt, kissed his ring, and embraced” him. pickup

End of session.

Leaving the meeting, he left the building and engaged in a “mindless search” for gifts for his grandchildren, before returning to his hotel to pray.

More to come in this tale for our time in handling heresy and excommunication matters . . .

As Dr. Johnson tells us in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775):

“I love anecdotes. I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made. If a man is to wait till he weaves anecdotes into a system, we may be long in getting them, and get but a few, in comparison of what we might get.”

Weary indeed, my friends, and more convinced by the day that the big book is for the young writer. Young reader too, perhaps.

Including that which does not in all points bear close reading.

IN THREE ICONIC ACTIONS – each taken by Conciliar Popes – Peter [sic] set aside the mandate given to him by our Lord Jesus Christ!

In Pope Paul VI, Peter took off the Papal tiara:
will not RULE the Church of Jesus Christ;
In Pope Paul VI, Peter returned the Islamic Standard to the Muslims won by our Lady at the Battle of Lepanto:
will not DEFEND the Bride of Jesus Christ;
In Pope John Paul II, Peter kissed the Koran:
will not HONOR the Gospel of Jesus Christ alone!

In each case “Peter” standing for the Pope in question. Oratorical flourish here, forgiven in the context.

More to the point:

THIRDLY, through Popes Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI, Peter Denied the Church’s obligation to offer Worship to no other God, but the Blessed Trinity
Popes Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI each visited and took part in services of worship at the Synagogue in Rome;
By way of these visits, these three Conciliar Popes gave credence to the false notion that it is possible for a people to have access to God the Father even though they have rejected His Only Begotten Son;
And they said this by and through their actions even though Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself said:
He that believeth in the Son, hath life everlasting; but he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. [John 3:36]
He who honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father, who hath sent him. [John 5:23]

Pope John Paul II called for and leads and Pope Benedict XVI lead subsequent
Assisi Prayer for World Peace events;
At these events prayers, animal sacrifices, and other offerings were made to false gods – with Peter’s blessing – within the precincts of a Church consecrated to the worship of the Blessed Trinity!

Which leads to questioning the whole ecumenical movement, popes giving away the store in a fraternal effort that got away from what made sense. Food for thought here, something the bishop in Houston wanted no part of, as will be made clear.

In any case, a matter of instant recognition to the preacher’s audience and the thousands who eventually listened to the sermon, people of serious faith who don’t get the finer points of ecclesiastical maneuvering.

— more more more to come —

The preacher has opened the Vatican 2 issue. He announces he cannot “avoid the conclusion that

this “spirit” of the Council, with its opening to the so-called “modern world” in ambiguous texts unlike any that any previous Council had ever adopted, has caused a rupture in the Church.

He backs this up with Pope Emeritus Benedict’s assessment:

Recognizing the problem with the Council’s apparent departure from Catholic tradition, [Benedict] made a valiant effort to propose what he called a Hermeneutic of Continuity or Reform. THAT IS, a way of interpreting the teachings of the Second Vatican Council so that they can be embraced together with the infallible teachings of the councils and Popes which came before.

“The Council’s apparent departure from Catholic tradition.” A rogue council?

The bishop in Houston is glued to his seat, listening to the replay of this sermon by one of his priests, administrator of a small congregation in a Minneapolis suburb, posted via link to word-for-word recording on a major traditionalist web site for thousands also to listen.

“The thoughtful Catholic” the preacher continues, “should ask himself: Why should it be necessary to try to reconcile the teaching of one Council with all other councils that came before it?”

That is to say, as Mehitabel said to Archie many decades ago, “Wotthehell? Wotthehell?”

Can’t do that reconciling, says the preacher.

I have come to the realization that this effort can no longer be made with integrity. And this conclusion ought not surprise . . . anyone [It caught the bishop napping!] . . . Pope John XXIII said at the opening of the Council and Pope Paul VI reminded everyone as the Council came to a close, that it was their express will to unleash a new Spirit into the Church . . . a spirit which each affirmed in his own way would be unlike the Spirit of Catholicism which had preceded it.

Revolutionary talk from Holy Fathers. Unwitting perhaps, failing to recognize a carte blanche of their own devising. Missing the spirit of the time. Going halfway in their direction?

No Pius X among them, he of the memorable fingering of theological “modernists” (his term for doctrine-meddlers) in an erudite 1907 encyclical, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, in which he rejected “profane novelties of words and oppositions of knowledge falsely so called.”

But how many Pius X’s have there ever been?

The preacher delivers a biting description of papal derogation of duty as he sees it, arguing (floridly) that “the Conciliar Popes have – in a way – repeated Peter’s Three-Fold Denial of Jesus Christ!”

He begins with Paul VI, who in 1965 hailed the United Nations as a “lofty Institution . . . the obligatory path of modern civilization and world peace,” contrasting it with Pius XI’s 1922 encyclical Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio declaring “the Church alone [was able] to . . . develop in mankind the true spirit of brotherly love.”

Furthermore, Paul (“Peter,” in that he occupies Peter’s chair) wouldn’t discipline “wayward Bishops, theologians and seminary professors . . . [but] PROMOTED and advanced clerics who openly denied the perennial and immutable truths of the Faith . . .

Preacher has much more in this vein, spilling his guts, letting devil take the hindmost, pouring it on for his flock — and now unwittingly for his bishop in far-off Houston.

Who was not pleased.
============================================
— more later on this much ado about a widely publicized passionate sermon, including a near-immediate flight to Houston for a command appearance before a grim, accusatory ecclesiastical trio . . .