[Translated by Jan Malina from the original in Czech Language, published in Czech 'traditional' Catholic circles under the title
"I object to [resent] a statement that I'm a "Lefebvrist" ]
Michal Semin
September 4, 2003
My answer to an article :"Bishops, do not subscribe to get Report
[from
International Report] published in the Catholic Weekly.
[Czech language version, English translation is mine -
translator's note]
I was very unpleasantly surprised of the level of untruth and demagoguery
printed in bold letters in the Notification from the Secretariat of the
Czech [Catholic Church] Bishop Conference [later just Notification] with the
title: "Bishops: Do not subscribe to receive [do not buy] Report of the case
of International Report [publication] and its reporting about the Berlin
Kirchentag in the Catholic Weekly # 34" .
The Notification supposed to serve as an advisory to priests and the laity
to cancel their subscription of the International Report magazine.
[Note: This International Report magazine is being
published by
David Rejl who lived for some years in the United
States and allegedly was selling diamonds in America - where were these
diamonds coming from ? How is Czech immigrant in America able to be involved
in such financially demanding business ? translator's note].
This is somewhat unusual, uncustomary to Czech ways, and therefore
a serious
decision because I'm not familiar
with anything similar that is applied to other magazines that are read by
people of faith.
Let us be specific what's in the Notification.
It is asserted that I put the readers on the wrong path by stating that
Cardinal Vlk was a member of the "ecumenical delegation"
[to this Kirchentag - Church Day gathering in Berlin -
trans. note]. I based it on the fact that the Old-Catholic Church
[Czech term for traditional Catholic Church - trans.
note] was put in charge to put together this year's Czech Church
delegation to Kirchentag, with the cooperation of the Czech
[Catholic - Vatican II - trans. note] Bishop
Conference and the [Czech] Ecumenical Council of Churches ECC.
[Trans. note - the ECC chairman at the time was Mr.
Vladislav Volny - his communist STB file info is below. It is kind of
hard to believe that
Mr. Semin, as the traditional Catholic he says he is, reports about known communist agents' involvement in organizing such delegations and doesn't know about their communist past, or rather does nothing about it and or at least he doesn't mention it in his articles. Mr. Semin knows
Petr Cibulka personally and these STB files are widely
available on the Internet, and in a printed book form in the Czech Republic.
All Mr. Semin has to do is ask about such people, that's all.]
People registered in STB communist files:
Place of STB registry |
File # |
|||
| Volný Vladislav | Agent not available |
Rudolf 0 |
||
| Volný Vladislav | Agent Ostrava |
Rudolf 25897 |
||
| Volný Vladislav | Secret collaborator not available |
Rudolf 25897 |
Article continues:
I took
this information from the Czech Bishop Conference Press Center [CBC PC]
release, as it was published on 05-27-2003 with the title "Ecumenical
Kirchentag in Berlin" and the author was Martin Horalek.
I opened the CBC PC website to make sure that I used the quotations
correctly. To my big surprise I noticed that this report was changed and
that it no longer contains the information about the main organizer of the
Czech participation [in Berlin], which was the Old-Catholic Church.
It is written in the original report that the organization of the Czech
delegation was done through cooperation of Old-Catholics,
CBC and the [Czech] Ecumenical Council of Churches (the same was reported by
the Catholic Weekly #23). Luckily I printed the original CBC PC report 2
moths ago and can produce it anytime as a proof against the lying CBC
Secretariat's statement.
The Notification also blames the International Report [magazine] for not
informing about the suspension of P. Hasenhuttl but doesn't say that P.
Hasenhuttl was suspended after the June issue of the [International] Report
!
I'm also supposed to attack the Ecumenical Charter. The author of the
Notification is using here and in other places terms through which he's
downgrading an important discussion about the concept of ecumenism. Perhaps
some readers will remember questions addressed to Cardinal Vlk by the
International Report with regards to the [and at the time of the]
publication of Ecumenical Charter (e.i. IR, August 2001).
We didn't "attack" the Ecumenical Charter, we were only asking for an
explanation from a competent Church authority, how it is possible to combine
Catholic teaching about the only one and only Church, outside which there is
no salvation, with some formulations of the Ecumenical Charter.There were no
objective answers to our questions.
What are we supposed to think about that ?
It is not satisfactory to refer [us] to the authority of Cardinal Ratzinger
and Cardinal Kasper. Of course we can address these authorities with such
same questions but we were hoping for a dialog
with our immediate Church authority that is directly superior to us.
Additional to that Cardinal Kasper's ecclesiological stands are publicly
known, and belong to many times by the Church teaching council denounced
ones [salvation in eternity for Jews remaining in contemporary Judaism,
denial of the Apostolic succession, denial of the "ecumenical return" etc.].
The Notification also states that I'm "known Lefebvrist" and that I'm
"mudding the waters". This part of the Notification cannot be more
denunciating.
First of all I resent the statement that I'm "Lefebvrist".
I'm a Roman Catholic who practices Catholic
doctrine in its entirety
and is loyal to the infallible teaching authority of the Catholic Church.
It is the Notification's author moral duty to prove the opposite.
Till then his statement [about Michal Semin] is an unjust accusation
that he's fully responsible for in front of God.
The author of the Notification stated that as a
"Lefebvrist" I regard
John Paul II as schismatic. This is an unfounded lie !
John Paul II is a legally [rightfully] elected Pope whom I pray for daily.
Yes, not always I agree with his activities and opinions (already mentioned
ecumenism, the Assisi gathering, kissing the Koran etc.), but these
disagreements apply to only those [Pope's] stands and deeds that lack the
character of the infallible proper and special teaching authority of the
Church, and which unconditional mandate was declined explained, nor were
they able to do so, by any Church Authority I'm addressing.
[Trans. note - This red color section has to be
explained fully. First, Czech people mostly don't know who Archbishop
Lefebvre was
and what he stands for.
So anybody who posts that Lefebvre regarded the Pope JP2 as schismatic, is basically telling people not to follow the teaching of Marcel Lefebvre. You can't simply let it stand like this because then the damage will be done - and Catholic tradition will suffer.
Also the lack of defending on part of Mr. Semin for Archbishop Lefebvre true Catholic stands, especially the denouncing of the Vatican II, as IMHO it is a heresy and nothing else, is also important because
it leaves the door open for such assumption that Marcel Lefebvre
and his teaching is something people shouldn't follow.
What is also important about
Mr. Semin, is that he stated that he:
"I'm a Roman Catholic who
practices Catholic doctrine in its entirety
and is loyal to the infallible teaching authority of the Catholic Church."
Does it mean then, that Mr. Semin agrees with the Vatican II doctrine and
is loyal to it in its entirety, as it is infallible as he says ?
If that's so, it would be in parallel with why Mr. Semin didn't defend Archbishop Lefebvre properly, instead of just defending himself (Semin) alone.
Since Mr. Semin stated that
he's practicing the Catholic Doctrine "in its entirety", it implies that
Marcel Lefebvre and his followers do NOT practice the true Catholic Doctrine
in its entirety.
That is also obvious from the text.
What message does Mr. Semin send to the Czech laity then about Archbishop
Lefebvre ?
If you stand for something, why not say so fully and completely. This is not only about Archbishop Lefebvre, but about the true Catholic Faith, which the Vatican II abomination and heresy undermines and Mr. Semin is not explaining this at all. Why ?
Mr. Semin is practically setting on
the same level the truth [Catholic Tradition] with the error [Vatican II] and
implies that this is what he, Semin, stands for.....
In regards to the truth Mr. Semin is not reporting the horrible informational blockade in the
Czech Republic, where publications are being censored and or blocked, and
that the Catholic laity is not able to buy and read anything that Archbishop
Lefebvre and other traditional Catholic writers have published elsewhere.
Meantime, it is a
known fact that the traditional Church in the Czech Republic is seriously
lacking proper books, none from Archbishop Lefebvre, no good Bible,
as the
Prague traditional chapel, reportedly which has only 10 titles available for the faithful to
read, 8 of these titles are in fact published in German language !!!!
So instead of helping to translate and publish these important Catholic books, Mr. Semin travels abroad and gives lectures about home schooling in the Czech Republic, which is grossly misleading because Czech people don't have enough money to afford to teach their kids at home and the law also states that after children reach the 5th grade level they have to go to public schools.....
Since the Civic
Institute, where Mr. Semin was the director and worked for the CI at least
for the last 13 years, has not published any such books and publications (as
far as I can tell, but there could be still some - very few, but I don't
know about them nor do my sources in the Czech Republic), Mr. Semin should
remedy that or at least explain
why, when he was the CI director, he didn't publish any such publications,
and why he's not informing the Czech Catholic laity about them and about
Archbishop Lefebvre and the traditional Catholic Church, the SSPX and so
forth, and why he's not defending Archbishop Lefebvre and our true
Catholic Faith on his own turf the Czech Republic, while he, Semin, is
talking about the traditional Catholic Church in his, by questionable donors
-"former" communists and the Czech Senate paid for Semin's international
travels ?
Michal Semin has never (publicly) acknowledged that the collapse of
communism in Czechoslovakia and Eastern Europe is a major fraud organized by
Moscow.
That alone is also very highly questionable, why Mr.
Semin keeps quiet about these true facts, why his CI organized the 2000
conference, all in English, in Prague, with the title "Freedom in Eastern
Europe in last 10 years", and the CI invited U.S. and U.K. defense experts
including Frank Gaffney, Richard Perle, Roger Robinson, Richard Allen and so
forth. ]
Semin continues:
In the contrast to disputing my loyalty to the Catholic Church, I am one of the very few Catholic laity who is defending, before the angry liberal public, the recent Congregation for Learning of Faith document about inadmissibility of homosexual marriages. These facts are not
preventing the Notification author not to warn about me and the
International Report, to which I am one of the (not too frequent)
contributors.
Negative character reference about my person is only secondary problem.
If the Czech and Moravian bishops were really interested in truthfulness of
the Catholic press, they wouldn't give [publication] space in the Catholic
Weekly to liberally thinking priests and laity, to the Orthodox Church
members and or Protestants, whose theological teaching and moral positions
are in total contrary to the will of Christ.
[Ed. note: This above section is again misleading - Mr. Semin simply disregards the fact that the Catholic Church in the Czech Republic is still being controlled by the communist agents who have by the way never given up their positions.
Mr. Semin is not reporting that the supposedly Catholic "seminary"
in Litomerice hasn't been in truly Catholic hands since the 1948 communist coup and that this "seminary" hasn't been therefore producing honest priests since.....how can this fact be omitted ?
Truth is truth, lies remain lies no
matter how silent we would dare to be about them - and seems like Mr. Semin is
one of those who like to remain silent......]
The
monthly publication AD wouldn't be sold in churches, the official Church
press wouldn't promote activities of other religions,
and I could mention tens of such examples.
The International Report [magazine] doesn't have patent for the truth,
but it seems like it is a black [bad] conscience for some, and it stands in
the way of others, who are building the Church structures on different
foundations than the Catholic Doctrine, which was entrusted by Jesus Christ
to the Apostles and their disciples for safeguarding,
and to give it to all coming generations.
---------
Author is member of the editorial board of International Report Magazine.
This article, according to information from the International Report
Magazine publishers, is also their official response to the Notification
from the Secretariat of the Czech Bishops Conference [Council], that was
published in the Catholic Weekly # 34.
------------------
[Editor's note:
It is important for the readers to forget they are Americans and or Western European while you read this article by Michal Semin.
You need to picture yourself as people, who lived most of your lives in communism, have absolutely no knowledge about the outside World, about the true and thoroughly presented background of the crisis in the Church, and only then, when you realize this, then begin to read the article again - this means that with the censorship and communist controlled publishing houses, no adequate truly traditional Catholic books and information are available to the Czech faithful.
And also, since the people were used to obey the state, the communists, they also learned to not to question [publicly and also privately] any information that they are supplied to - and so when Mr. Semin is so careless about implying the above, Czech faithful will accept this information no questions asked.
This simply cannot be tolerated !
That's why this serious damage to tradition in the Czech Republic needs to be exposed so it can be remedied as soon as possible.
Links
to additional info about the Civic Institute of Prague and the Christian
Academy of Prague:
Christian Academy [next door office to Civic Institute]
http://www.anti-communistanalyst.com/06102005.html
Christian Academy members and their communist background:
http://www.anti-communistanalyst.com/ChristianAcademymembers.html
What the dissidents shouldn't look like:
http://www.anti-communistanalyst.com/05222005.html