The SSPX seminary rector encourages us to desire luxury cars during Passiontide

Posted on by Catholic Candle

 

Right before the beginning of the holy time of Passiontide, we received Fr. Yves le Roux’s raffle ticket promotion for a new 2020 Jaguar XE luxury car, offered in a SSPX’s fundraiser.  He included a cover letter with his glossy Jaguar promotion. 

 

Fr. le Roux apparently can’t see the irony of trying to get SSPX followers to desire a rich man’s luxury car, while he also warns (in his cover letter) about the dangers of worldly and sensual objects undermining our souls and creating “insatiable needs” which harm our souls.  Here is a shortened version of Fr. le Roux’s words from his cover letter, followed by the words in his enclosed Jaguar promotion:

 

The constant search for his [viz., man’s] satisfactions, conscious or not, undermines man.  The inclination of his senses to enjoy their pleasing objects immediately exerts upon man a true tyranny.  …  Penance is a remedy.  It dries up the source of the insatiable needs that man himself has created and imposes a calming remedy that allows him to turn towards higher things and thus to leave the infernal decline into which he was sinking.  …  [Jaguar promotion:] Support us.  Win a 2020 Jaguar XE.[1] 

 

Despite some pious words, Fr. le Roux is blinded by the “true tyranny” of “pleasing objects” (to use his own words).  He cannot see that he is promoting this very same “tyranny” in his followers. 

 

As greatly as Fr. le Roux (and the SSPX) are harming the soul of the person who will actually win that rich man’s car, Fr. le Roux also does tremendous harm to all of his followers by promoting worldly desires in them.  (Fr. le Roux wants them all to strongly desire that luxury car so that they will buy many raffle tickets.)

 

Fr. le Roux’s example is the opposite of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who teaches us to:

 

Be not solicitous therefore, saying, what shall we eat: or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed?  For after all these things do the heathens seek.  For your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things.  Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.

 

St. Matthew’s Gospel, 6:31-33.

 

St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Doctor of the Catholic Church, approves of and quotes the teaching of the Venerable Bede, Doctor of the Church, who especially warns priests to avoid that worldly focus we see in the “new”, liberal SSPX.  Here are St. Bede’s words:

 

For such should be the preacher’s trust in God, that, though he takes no thought for supplying his own wants in this present world, yet he should feel most certain that these will not be left unsatisfied, lest whilst his mind is taken up with temporal things, he should provide less of eternal things to others.[2]

 

Likewise, St. Thomas Aquinas approves of and quotes the teaching of Pope St. Gregory the Great, Doctor of the Church, who warns priests about the evil of being money-focused.  Here are his words:

 

For the preacher (of the Gospel) ought to have such trust in God, that although he has provided not for the expenses of this present life, he should still be most certainly convinced that these will not fail him; lest while his mind is engaged in his temporal things, he should be less careful for the spiritual things of others.[3]

 

By Fr. le Roux hawking Jaguar raffle tickets, he certainly focuses on temporal concerns, against the warnings given by Our Lord and the Doctors of the Church.

 

It might be that Fr. le Roux thinks he has “no choice” but to regularly ask for money because otherwise his followers would not give it.  But he should compare his money-focus to the instruction given to priests in St. Thomas Aquinas’s work on St. Luke’s Gospel:

 

However small in amount and vile is the food that you are given, ask for nothing more.”[4]

 

 

Conclusion                                                    

 

Truly, Fr. le Roux and the N-SSPX are the blind leading the blind.  As Our Lord warns us, they all fall into the pit. 

 

Above, blind Fr. le Roux incoherently warns about desiring the type of luxury goods that he wants his followers to desire.  As he tells us, these desires cause a man to sink further down the infernal path.

 

More than at any other time of year, Passiontide is a time for a higher focus than Fr. le Roux’s!

 

Let us continue to pity and pray for Fr. le Roux and his worldly SSPX!


[1]           Quoted from Fr. le Roux’s letter dated “Ash Wednesday 2020” but actually received weeks later on March 27, 2020 (emphasis added).

[2]           Words of the Venerable Bede, Doctor of the Church, from Catena Aurea on St. Mark’s Gospel, St. Thomas Aquinas, editor, ch.6, §2.

[3]           Words of Pope St. Gregory the Great, Doctor of the Church, from the Catena Aurea on St. Luke’s Gospel, St. Thomas Aquinas, editor, ch.10, §2 (parenthetical words in the original).


[4]           St. Thomas Aquinas approves of and quotes these words of Bishop Theophylactus, a learned 11th Century Bible scholar, commenting on Our Lord’s instruction to his disciples “Eat such things as are set before you” (St. Luke’s Gospel, 10:8).  Catena Aurea on St. Luke’s Gospel, St. Thomas Aquinas, editor, ch.10, §3.

 

In The Imitation of Christ, the Voice of Christ tell Fr. le Roux and the rest of us: “[D]esire nothing outside of Me.” The Imitation of Christ, Book III, Ch. 25 (emphasis added).