My family (Christophe) is very Catholic. But she adopted the reforms of Vatican II without batting an eyelid, my father, because he believed in them, my mother much less, because she had been in the convent until the age of 18.
In our family, mass is obligatory until the age of 16, after which everyone takes care of their soul.
I confess that the conciliar mass, the catechism of the same metal and the related sacraments left me perfectly indifferent. Much worse, I started reading philosophy with a predilection for Nietzsche, whose complete works I had read before I turned 18...
A period of rejection of the religious family heritage then began, and of course of rejection of the mass. It was accentuated in the late 1970s and early 1980s by the veritable “circus” that the services had become (guitars, Tam Tam and other happenings without any link with sacredness). Added to this were sermons where we did not talk about God, or Christ, but about Nicaragua or the unemployed, or whatever...
Around 1982, I felt a spiritual void that the modern mass could not fill, nor philosophy could quench. I looked for the absolute: how did our ancestors pray and live their spirituality? I found the answers in the works of Georges Dumézil (of the French Academy) specialist in comparative religions, and especially Indo-European ones, inventor of the tri-functionality among the Gods of the Indo-Europeans. The response was therefore an eternal message, transmitted orally by Tradition between initiates. This metaphysical discovery led me to become interested in Sophia Perennis, and I devoured the works of René Guénon, Fritjhof Schuon, Julius Evola and even Jean Borella. The divine presence seemed obvious to me, but not the means to “touch” this presence. And then, if all divine messages found their source in a single Truth, how can we explain the Mesoamerican religions, bloody and steeped in scientific occultism that is hardly compatible with a healthy faith? Back to square one, I was a de facto agnostic.
Having married a fervent Catholic (modernist) in 1990, I would notice from time to time that Catholic services were not improving, and in the case of Martinique, I would say, on the contrary! In 1994, during a trade show in Paris, I wanted to visit the Sacré Cœur in Montmartre. I entered at the moment of a vibrant Credo sung by an extraordinary choir. Both my wife and I remained paralyzed by the beauty and depth of this service which we attended until the end. Back in Martinique, a few months later, I spoke to an officer friend about this experience over punch and he informed me that Fort de France had an SSPX chapel. The following Sunday we went there with my wife, and if my Martinican was reserved about Latin she had to admit that Father Ortiz's sermons flirted with heights. We only systematically went to mass at this chapel, which saw the Baptism of our second child.
The chances of professional life then took me to New Caledonia from 2001 to 2008. I forced myself to take my family every Sunday to the Cathedral for sad Paul VI services, which more than once, I left through the central aisle, because of the disgusting sermons ("the Devil does not exist, he is only the anthropomorphic personification of our evil inclinations" or even "God is not an old man with a white beard, he is because they want to communicate to us the image of the Father, but he could also be a woman”, I go on and on and of the best…).
This hell to which I subjected myself to to accustom the children to the rhythm and Sunday homework would end in 2008. That year, I bought a house in Dumbéa, 25 km from Nouméa and during a motorbike ride, I I noticed that a Chapel was being built 800 meters from my home. Curious, I approached and came across an old grump who informed me that the property was private and owned by the SSPX. An hour later, over an aperitif and a cigar, this former Legionnaire told me the wonderful story of Clovis, the Kanak tribal chief who brought the fraternity to NC in 1983.
My wife as much as I was struck by the fact that the Fraternity was setting up next to my home, and the message seemed very clear to us. We attended this chapel until our return to France in 2019. I was the Mission Secretary for 6 years, my last was the first confirmed there (by Monseigneur Tissier), my daughter was the first bride there ( by Father Bochkoltz…
In Christo Jésu.
