The Society of St. Pius X's study: From Ecumenism to Silent Apostasy (January 2004)

A preface letter accompanied this study.  Here is a significant extract from it:

Letter to all cardinals, January 6, 2004

“(...)This ecumenism was the principal reason of a liturgical reform that has been disastrous for the faith and religious practice of the faithful. This ecumenism has revised the Bible, distorting the divinely inspired text in order to present a watered down version incapable to hold up the Catholic faith. This ecumenism now seeks to found a new Church of which Cardinal Kasper in a recent conference has given the precise outlines. We can never be in communion with the promoters of such an ecumenism which leads to the dissolution of the Catholic Church, that is, Christ in His Mystical Body, and which destroys the unity of the faith, the true foundation of this communion. We do not want the unity wished by this ecumenism, because it is not the unity wished by God, it is not the unity that characterizes the Catholic Church.

“It is thus this ecumenism that we mean to analyze and denounce by the enclosed document, as we are persuaded that the Church cannot correspond to her divine mission if she does not begin to renounce openly and to firmly condemn this utopia which in the words of Pius XI, “completely destroy the foundations of the Catholic faith .” (Mortalium animos, January 6, 1928)

“Conscious of belonging by right to this same Church, and ever desiring to serve her more, we beg of you to do all that is in your power to give to the present Magisterium, as soon as possible, the centuries old language of the Church, according to which “the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it .” The Catholic Church will then become again the lighthouse of truth and the port of salvation in the midst of the world that risks its ruin because the salt has lost its savor.

“Please, your Eminence, do not believe that we would want in anyway take the place of the Holy Father, but rather we await from the Vicar of Christ the energetic measures necessary to liberate the Mystical Body from the morass in which a false ecumenism has sunk her. Only he who has received the full, universal, and supreme authority over the entire Church can perform these salutary acts. From the successor of Peter, we prayerfully hope that he would hear our humble appeal for help, and that he would heroically manifest that charity which had been asked of the first Pope when he received his office, the greatest of charity – “Amas Me plus his”, the charity necessary to save the Church.

The letter was signed by the four bishops of the Society of St. Pius X: Bishop Bernard Fellay, Bishop Alfonso de Galaretta (then second Assistant General), Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Bishop Richard Williamson, as well as Fr. Franz Schmidberger (then first Assistant General) 

From ecumenism to silent apostasy – chapter 1: “The unity of the human race and inter-religious dialogue”

The study addressed to the cardinals situated the inter-religious meeting in Assisi in the perspective of the conciliar idea of the unity of the human race.

Christ, united to every man

4. The basis of the Pope’s way of thinking is found in the statement that “Christ ‘has united himself in a certain way to all men' (Gaudium et Spes nº 22), even if these men are not aware of it.” John Paul II explains, that the Redemption wrought by Christ is actually universal not only in the sense that it is superabundant for the entire human race, and that it is offered to each of its members in particular, but moreover that it is de facto applied to all men. If, then, from one point of view, “in Christ, religion is no longer a 'search for God by trial and error' (Acts 17, 27), but a response of the faith to God who reveals Himself […], a response made possible by this unique Man […] in whom every man is made capable of responding to God”, from another viewpoint, the Pope adds, “in this Man, the whole creation responds to God.” In fact, “each man is included in the mystery of the Redemption and Christ has united himself for ever with each individual through this mystery. […] Which is, man in all the fullness of the mystery of which he has become a sharer in Jesus Christ, the mystery of which each one of the four thousand million human beings living on our planet has become a sharer from the moment he is conceived.” And this happens in such a way that “in the Holy Spirit, each person and all peoples have become, by the Cross and resurrection of Christ, the children of God, participators in the divine nature and the heirs of eternal life.”

The Meeting at Assisi

5. An immediate application of the universality of Redemption is the manner in which John Paul II considers the relations between the Church and other religions. If the order of unity previously described “is that which goes back to the creation and the redemption, and is thus, in a sense, “divine”, these differences and divergences, even religious ones, are rather a 'human consequence'” which ought to be “left behind in the progress towards the realization of the grandiose design of unity which was present at the creation.” From this follows the inter-faith meetings such as Assisi, 27 October 1986, during which the Pope wanted to see “in a visible way the fundamental but hidden unity which the divine Word […] has established amongst all men and all women of this world.” By these acts, the Pope wishes to proclaim to the Church that “Christ is the fulfillment of the yearning of all the world’s religions and, as such, he is their sole and definitive consummation.”

You can read about this topic :

The Assisi meeting, seen from Mecca

25 years of opposition to the spirit of Assisi, in the name of the continuity of the Magisterium before Vatican II

Assisi I (October 27, 1986) :

Letter of Archbishop Lefebvre to eight cardinals (August 27, 1986)

Declaration by Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop de Castro Mayer, December 2, 1986

Assisi II (January 24, 2002) :

Bishop Fellay's letter concerning the meeting in Assisi on January 24, 2002

Interview with Bishop Bernard Fellay published by DICI Feb. 2, 2004

Towards Assisi III (22nd October 2011) :

Bishop Fellay’s conference at the Courier de Rome Congress, Paris, January 9th 2011 (excerpts)

Statement by Fr. Stefan Frey, Rector of the seminary of the Society of St. Pius X in Germany

And also :

Benedict XVI will travel to Assisi in October 2011

We will not pray together in Assisi

Italian Catholic Intellectuals Beg Benedict XVI To “Flee the Spirit of Assisi”