The 2000 Declaration
In his declaration of the vacancy of the Roman See ("Declaratio" of February 25, 1982) Msgr. Pierre Martin Ngô-dinh-Thuc announced he would "do everything to assure the preservation of the Roman Catholic Church for the eternal salvation of souls". In order to fulfill this task, he had, among other things, consecrated different bishops with the obligation to secure Apostolic Succession and to transfer this task while at the same time preserving the unity of the Church.
On the basis of personal deficiencies, even among those bishops entrusted with this task, and an obvious worldwide tendency to reduce the Church, the means of salvation, to the business of merely providing the sacraments, there exists the danger of members of the true Catholic Church falling into sects. This tendency to fall into sects has allowed "vagant clerics" to migrate from community to community, even integrating themselves in communities which originally were not sects. This leads to the emergence of a perverse situation: the "traditional Latin Mass" is read by invalidly ordained "priests". With this general development, the original design of Msgr. Thuc has strayed into what he tried to prevent and - humanly speaking - sealing the downfall of the Church established by Jesus Christ as the means of salvation. In trying to restrain this setback and in order to restore the Church as the means of salvation, we declare the following:
The Church is, according to the definition of the Doctor of the Church, Saint Robert Bellarmine, "the union of men who are united by the profession of the same faith, and by the participation in the same Sacraments under the direction of their lawful pastors, especially of the one representative of Christ on earth, the Pope of Rome" (De eccl. milit., c. 2). This union rests especially with the bishops and priests: "He placed St. Peter at the head of the other apostles that the episcopate might be one and undivided, and that the whole multitude of believers might be preserved in unity of faith and communion by means of a well-organized priesthood..." (The Vatican Council, Constitution Pastor aeternus, July 18, 1870, D 1821 / DS 3051). But the faithful must also be united: "[S]o for this reason above all the Church is called a body, that it is constituted by the coalescence of structurally united parts, and that it has a variety of members reciprocally dependent" (Pius XII, Encyclical Mystici corporis, June 29, 1943, DS 3800).
What is meant is the criterion for membership in the Church includes the necessary intention of conveying unity of the faithful among one another. This universal unity must be visibly manifested: "From this it follows that those who arbitrarily conjure up and picture to themselves a hidden and invisible Church are in serious and pernicious error..." (Leo XIII, Encyclical Satis cognitum, June 29, 1896, DS 3301).
With the apostasy of the hierarchy after "Vatican II", which is documented in Msgr. Thucs "Declaratio", the Church has all but been destroyed as a visible institution of salvation; a visible "Community of the Faithful" no longer exists, even though there are communities and groups scattered throughout the world professing the true faith.
Christ founded the Church as the institute of salvation - not a mere faith community - in order to guarantee absolutely the unerring transmission of His teachings and means of grace. The reconstruction of the Church, therefore, as an institution of salvation is required by the will of its Divine Founder.
In order to restore Church as a visible institution of salvation there must occur the following:
1) Preservation of the means of grace
2) Safeguarding and transmission of Church doctrine
3) Preservation of apostolic succession
4) Restructuring of the community of the faithful again into parishes,
dioceses, and normal levels of Church functioning
5) Restoration of the Church Hierarchy
6) Restoration of the Papacy (the principle of unity)
But in so doing, we find a dilemma. On one hand we lack the necessary Church authority to fulfill this responsibility, since the hierarchy has fallen into apostasy; on the other hand the fulfillment is a necessary prerequisite of the restoration of Church authority. The restoration of Church authority is required by the Christs will for the salvation of man. The dilemma can be solved, as I see it, in that all previous activities are seen to stand in relation to or in consideration of a later definitive legitimization by the restored hierarchy. This includes, for example, the celebration of holy Mass and the administration of the Sacraments, which may presently be justified only through such consideration as the working toward the complete restoration of the Church as the institute of salvation and the submission to the judgment, later on, of the restored legitimate authority. Administration and reception of the Sacraments (including the celebration of and attendance at holy Mass) is not allowed, then, if they are not performed in relation to this sole possible justification, even though the sacraments are valid.
In consideration of this, and under these reasons, the members of the true Church can be said to comprises the Mystical Body of Christ. In the four criteria Pius XII, in the encyclical Mystici Corporis, gives:
(1) Reception of Baptism,
(2) Confession of the true faith,
(3) Subjection to legitimate Church authority, and
(4) Freedom from most serious Church censure (DS 3802)
the third (3) must be modified by a substituting criterion: as legitimate Church authority appears to be lacking, the exerted effort in restoring Church authority must be able to fulfill this criteria.
We, the undersigners, urgently request all clerics and faithful to cooperate with this decisive responsibility for the welfare of the Church and by so doing, the Church will remain for eternal salvation of souls.
Munich and Hermosillo/Mexico, February 20 and 25, 2000.
Heller, Jerrentrup, Krier
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