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NATO'S MISSAL CRISIS

Madeleine Beard

(published by Mass of Ages, November 2001)

It all began in Dayton, Ohio in 1993. Major David Sonnier and his family were at Mass in a neighbourhood chosen because of its proximity to the nearest Catholic church. During Mass one Sunday Mrs. Sonnier noticed that the readings had been changed to make them gender neutral. Other politically-motivated alternatives were being made to the liturgy. Little did she realise that this was to be the start of NATO's Missal Crisis.

For many years David Sonnier had not paid much attention to what was going on in the Church, assuming that everything he witnessed at Mass was authorised. His wife's indignant reaction at what was happening suddenly made him take notice. He confided in a friend who said to him: "I am telling you for the last time, you should go to the Latin Mass." Sonnier realised that he had been saying this for a number of months. He now took him seriously. So Major David Sonnier and his family began going to that Mass.

Like so many introductions and re-conversions to Catholicism among practising Catholics, one individual leads to another. In the case of the Sonnier family it was because of one college student attending the Mass in Pennsylvania, who carried that devotion with him to Ohio, who was able to reintroduce the glorious nature of the Catholic devotional and Sacramental liturgy to one family. And the request for the celebration of that same Mass later on brought about a crisis which reached the highest levels of the American Army and the Ministry of Defense. All because Colonel David Sonnier requested that this Mass be celebrated in a small, recently-constructed chapel in the NATO Support Base in Brussels.

The campaign continued for several years. Finally, Mrs. Sonnier said to her husband: "I think Almighty God is telling you that you should leave the Army." Because attending the celebration of the 1962 Mass, without hindering his career in the Army, was, in the end, of paramount importance to Colonel David Sonnier.

This is the story of a battle that was almost lost. It is also the story of the inevitable triumph of the Truth. Witnessing to the Truth found Colonel David Sonnier in an unexpected spiritual battle which increasingly dominated his life as a Catholic serving in the American Army. For the sake of his Soul and the Souls of his wife and five children, he has chosen a tactical withdrawal. His story is of the mysterious workings of Divine Grace, a story which outsiders locked in the so-called real world of today would find incomprehensible.

After twenty years' serving in the US Army, Colonel Sonnier is moving to Arkansas. He and his young family shall live alongside like-minded Catholics, some of whom have rediscovered the Mass simply by being brought along by their sons to see them serve the Mass. Colonel Sonnier is taking the opportunity to re-build the Church in America, an opportunity denied him with extraordinary venom by his own Catholic chaplains, who brought military superiority to bear in their determination to suppress the Mass. The same authorities and chaplains who nevertheless allow the practice of witchcraft and pagan ceremonies in military chapels. Authorities who have given keys to witches, but deny access to Catholics who wish only to attend the Mass once celebrated in churches and chapels throughout the world until 1969. That same Mass which now, through the grace of Almighty God, is being re-discovered by families such as the Sonniers who are profoundly aware of what might have been lost. They are devoting their lives to regaining their Catholic inheritance. And, unexpectedly, they leave behind them in Belgium an English priest, Father William Hudson of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest.

Ordained at Gricigliano on the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul 2000, Father Hudson is now Parish Priest at Notre Dame du Bon Vouloir in the village of Havré in Belgium near Mons. For the first time since 1969, the Old Mass is being exclusively celebrated in a village in Belgium not far from where the British Army fought its first battle in August 1914. This is an English priest engaging in and continuing a spiritual battle for the restoration of the True Faith on Belgian soil. In a country where, during the Great War of 1914 to 1918, so many millions of lives were so needlessly lost. The Battle of Mons started a world war which then led to another.

It was the timeless, faultless beauty of the Mass which sustained the survivors of that hateful war. It was a Mass in which those who suffered during four long years of hell on earth were allowed to pray silently, without interruption, without having to be distracted by inaccurate translations and banal music, or an intrusive laity. That Mass, which made life worth living for those who had suffered but did not die and which sustained them through another war, was cruelly taken away from them in 1969. But now, after thirty years, the same amount of time that Our Lord spent in obscurity in Palestine, once again that same Mass is being celebrated. The recently-ordained Father William Hudson is now a priest in a village in a country which, like so many countries where the Catholic Church was once so strong, is in desperate need of the Sacraments. Sacraments celebrated as they once were before the liturgical disruptions took hold.

So this is the story of failure and success, of retreat and triumph, of continuing struggle and, we hope and pray, eventual victory.

Rudyard Kipling, whose beloved son Jack was lost in action in 1915, wrote of "those two imposters, failure and success". Particular people have their particular role to play in the resurrection of the One True Church. And the battle as always, in every circumstance, is to save our own Soul. Our Soul, Almighty God, transubstantion, all to us are invisible. Yet each exists. It is our supernatural God-given Faith which unites Catholics. And the crisis in the Church that we love has brought about the most unlikely of friendships. The English priest in exile from his homeland and the American Army Officer are on the frontline of a spiritual battle which has only just begun. A battle which shall eventually see the triumph of the return of the Mass snatched from us in 1969.

When in 1993 David Sonnier first attended the Mass, he recalled that in addition to finding the Mass and recognising the beauty of it, what struck him even before the Mass began was the seriousness and reverence of the congregation and their piety. He said: "At the moment the Mass began I knew that I had found my home in the Church."

It took a while to discover what had actually happened in the intervening years. He had heard something about Archbishop Lefebvre. Like most American Catholics he had assumed that the Mass was forbidden and that the Archbishop had been excommunicated for saying the Mass. And that if you were going to be a loyal Catholic you had to be at the New Mass. He got hold of the Ecclesia Dei document. Assigned to the Air Command and Staff College in Montgomery, Alabama soon afterwards, he would drive to Birmingham, Alabama to attend the Mass. Soon afterwards Major Sonnier was assigned to Fort Bragg, North California. It was here, at America's largest Army base, that the nature of the problem became clear. His request for the Mass was referred back and forth between the Bishop of Raleigh, North Carolina and the Military Archdiocese. He then started to visit the Post's Chaplain at Fort Bragg. But his numerous requests to have the Mass celebrated were turned down. Soon he was being directly accused by the Catholic Chaplain at Fort Bragg of being disobedient. He was threatened with excommunication. In trying to put forward his case to the Chaplain at Fort Bragg, he then adopted a different approach. He simply said that the clear shortage of priests throughout the American military had to be addressed. Army Chaplains have to be young and fit. The only seminaries producing and attracting young vocations were traditional ones.

At this point the Chaplain snapped. He started shouting at Colonel Sonnier and threw him out of his office. "He was red in the face, he was spitting while he was screaming," recalled Sonnier, who responded by saying that he could send more information about such growth in the Church. "You do that and I'll just throw it away. Get out of my office now." Concluding with three simple words: "Out, out, out." Fearing that the Military Police would be called and knowing the Chaplain out-ranked him, Sonnier dutifully left the office. He decided from then on to leave Fort Bragg, even though he had been assured he had a good chance of being promoted to Battalion Commander.

Here was a combat soldier unwilling to make a compromise. Here was a combat soldier turning down the chance of advancement in order to lead his life as a Catholic able to attend the 1962 Rite of Mass with his family. He realised that the Chaplain who directed such anger at him was not the Church speaking. He said, "I absolutely refuse to believe that the Catholic Church spits and screams at people and throws them out of their office. That is not the way the Holy Father intended Ecclesia Dei to be handled. I wasn't going to accept that." So he sought a transfer, with the understanding that he was declining the Battalion Commander Selection. In 1998 he and his family moved to Brussels, where he knew the Fraternity of St. Peter had a foothold. A year later, NATO's Missal Crisis began.

The Brussels American community includes 2,000 military, civilian and family members from numerous US Government and NATO activities, including the Headquarters of NATO, the US Embassy and the US Mission to the European Union. In 1999, for the first time in thirty-two years, a chapel was constructed in the NATO Support Activity compound on the edge of Brussels. Colonel Sonnier and other like-minded Catholics made the request to the American Army Chaplain in Europe for permission for a 1962 Rite of Mass, the Celebrant being an English-speaking priest from the Fraternity of St. Peter. They were informed that this Mass could not be celebrated without the permission of Cardinal Daneels of Mechlen-Brussels. A request was duly made in February 2000. Five months later in July 2000 permission was granted for a Mass with two conditions. It could only be attended by holders of American ID cards and permission was not granted for Baptisms or Marriages in that Rite.

On the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, 22nd August 2000, Archbishop O'Brien at the American Military Archdiocese gave permission. He indicated that he would ask the 80th Area Support Group Chaplain to inquire about how often the Mass would be celebrated and who the Celebrant would be, hoping this would be accomplished "without too much lapse or red tape". A month later, on the basis of these inquiries, the American Army Chaplain in Europe, a Catholic priest, turned down the request for the celebration of the Mass. He thus undermined the authority of the Belgian Cardinal and the American Archbishop. Meanwhile, in Germany, with the permission of the same Chaplain, witchcraft ceremonies regularly occur at the American Army Base of Taylor Barracks at Mannheim. But the Immemorial Mass is banned. That is why Colonel David Sonnier has left the Army. On 22nd June 2000 David Sonnier wrote:

"This is the Mass of my family, the Mass I have opted to return to upon hearing that our Sovereign Pontiff had 'reauthorised' it. If it is not welcome in military chapels, then my family is not welcome in the military. Nor are the other families who have opted to return to the Old Rite. It is important to expose bigotry where it exists, and fight it by exposing it. In this we have been successful, on a local level, and if I eventually must make the issue public, we will be successful on a broader level. We have been given very few tools with which to work for the restoration of the Old Mass. So we must work with the tools we have, and much prayer. With the US Military the idea that a group of Catholics would be denied access to the military chapels is seen as quite un-American (not to mention, un-Catholic) and so we must ensure that the appropriate authorities have the opportunity to see that this injustice is taking place."

On the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul 2001, Colonel David Sonnier formally left the American Army. One hour before he did so, the Mass he had requested for so long was permitted to be celebrated.