Bishop Salvador L. Lazo, Bishop Emeritus of San Fernando Diocese of La Union in the Philippines, departed to his eternal rest at 3:25 A.M. on Tuesday April 11^th 2000, after a short illness. He was in his 84^th year. He was born on May 1^st, 1917 in Cayagan, ordained priest in 1947, consecrated bishop and appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Tuguegarao, Cayagan, in 1970. In 1980 he was made the administrator of the Diocese of San Fernando, La Union, and a few months later, on March 9^th 1981, was installed as the second residential bishop of that diocese.

In his thirteenth year as bishop of the Diocese, he reached his retirement age. By Canon Law he was supposed to retire. On July 16^th 1993, he left the Diocese of San Fernando, La Union, to live with his sister, Teresa, who was sick. It happened through Divine Providence that their residence was not far away from the Priory of the Society St Pius X in Quezon City.

One night Mr. Antonio Malaya Jr. and four catechists of the Priory paid him a visit. They were loaded with books. After an hour of a lively conversation, the visitors stood up and bade goodbye, leaving the books on a chair. As Bishop Lazo narrates: “I was happy they left the books. I like to read. In fact one of the things I missed as a bishop was to read for pleasure. Also I was eager to update myself. (…) What was so puzzling to me was the fact that here was an international conference of 2200 Catholic bishops and there were no bulletins, nor flyers to give us an idea of what was happening in Vatican II. It seemed that we were deliberately left in the dark. Was this an act of a premeditated strategy ? Well, I didn’t know”.

Some of the titles of the books were:

1. AA – 1025, The memoirs of an anti-Apostle, by Marie Carre, TAN
2. The Kingship of Christ and the conversion of the Jewish Nation, by Rev. Denis Fahey, CSSP
3. Freemasonry and the Vatican, by Viscounte Leon de Poncins
4. Encyclicals : Humanum Genus, by Pope Leo XIII; Pascendi Dominici Gregis, by Pope Pius X; Mortalium Animos, by Pope Pius XI; Mediator Dei, by Pope Pius XII
5. Pope John’s Council, by Michael Davies

“Reading these books”, explains Bishop Lazo, “gave me a better idea of the crisis and confusion in the Church today. It became clear to me who are the real enemies of the Catholic Church. Father Denis Fahey pinpointed them when he wrote: ‘The enemies of the Catholic Church are three, one invisible, Satan, and two visible: Talmudic Judaism, and Freemasonry’. It had been always a puzzle to me that, in spite of the condemantion of Freemasonry by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical ‘Humanum Genus’ (and by thirteen other popes as well, starting with Clement XII in 1738), there were Freemasons in the higher authorities of the Church. (…) Reading the books disturbed me greatly as I was still then saying the Novus Ordo Mass. To clear my doubts I read on. After more than a year of searching for the truth, I began to make a decision: I had to return to the Tradition of the Catholic Church and, along with that, to the Tridentine Mass”.

Cardinal Sin, the Metropolitan Primate of the Philippines, pressured Bishop Lazo to stop going to the Priory of the Society of St. Pius X because “you are scandalizing Catholics by your bad example”. The Archbishop of the diocese of Tuguegarao, Diosdado Talamayan, appealed to him in a letter mentioning a possible subsidy in case he would listen to his advice to obey the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II.

“My response”, writes Bishop Lazo, “was that obedience must serve Faith. (…) My perception is that post-conciliar reforms were Masonic inspired, aimed to destroy the Catholic Religion. I don’t want to cooperate in the diabolical extirpation of the Catholic Religion founded by Jesus-Christ. (…) Obedience to the Pope is not a problem to me. I only want that the Pope fulfills all his duties as mandated by Jesus-Christ, that he really saves immortal souls for whom Our Lord died on the cross on Mount Calvary. (…) I pray daily for the Pope. (…) He must guard faithfully the deposit of Faith and interpret it as it was done by the faithful Popes until Vatican II Council. (…) Only doctrines from the deposit of Faith should be explained and interpreted as Jesus-Christ mandated. My critics always remind me of the words: ‘Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia’ (where is Peter, there is the Church). The ‘Petrus’ is the Pope and he has the duty to be faithful to Jesus-Christ whose Vicar he is. It means that if ‘Petrus’ changes a bit what Christ handed down to us through the apostles, the Pope loses the moral right to expect from us our obedience. (…) The Pope’s loyalty to the deposit of faith spells my loyalty to the Vicar of Christ.”

Early in August 1995, after prolonged reflection and prayer, Bishop Lazo decided to approach Rev. Fr. Paul Morgan, local Superior of the Society St. Pius X in the Philippines, and confided to him his plan to return to the traditional Latin Mass. For what reasons ? He explains himself in his autobiography:

“The ancient Mass was scrapped because of ecumenism. But the Old Mass contained many Catholic dogmas which Protestant denied. Therefore the Mass instituted by Jesus-Christ was changed for the Mass which was a concoction of Fr. Annibale Bugnini, a Freemason. Six Protestant ministers who assisted him saw to it that all the Catholic dogmas offensive to Protestants ears were deleted. Prayers stressing the idea of sacrifice were dropped (especially the notion of a propitiatory sacrifice, able to atone for sins). (…) This way the Traditional Latin Mass was protestantized. And the result ? Many Catholics were and still are, converted to Protestantism.” A little further he writes: “… the sense of the sacred is minimised, if not altogether cancelled”.

On August 22^nd 1995, the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, after twenty-seven years celebrating the new rite, Bishop Lazo offered the Tridentine Holy Mass, the Mass of all time, and has always celebrated that Mass ever since.

In June 1996, invited by Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Society St. Pius X, Bishop Lazo attended to the priestly ordinations at Econe, Switzerland, where he imposed the hands on the ordinands together with the four bishops of the Society.

After a visit in the U.S. where he told to many traditional Catholics the beautiful story of his ‘conversion’ to Tradition, he published his remarkable Profession of Faith, made with the same Faith, conviction and supernatural determination as Archbishop Lefebvre’s declaration of 1974. He gave the same declaration as an Open Letter to the Holy Father on the 10^th anniversary of the episcopal consecrations performed by Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop De Castro Mayer in 1988.

Bishop Lazo passed his last years attempting to transmit to others the special grace of fidelity to Tradition that he himself had received. He contacted many bishops and priests throughout the Philippines and Asia, explaining the crisis in the Church and sending them good books. He celebrated the Holy Mass daily at the Society’s Church of Our Lady of Victories in Manilla, which was a great encouragement for the faithful.

During the last week of his life, after he had been sent home from hospital to die, he was nursed by the Society’s four priests in Manilla,whom he had encouraged and edified since their arrival. Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Society St. Pius X, celebrated his funeral Mass on April 14^th at Our Lady of Victories Church, Manilla, Philippines.

As Fr. Peter Scott says very well (Regina Coeli Report – May 2000): “Just as he had the unspeakable grace of returning to the Mass of his priestly ordination, and just as he suffered from his fellow bishops for his uncompromising stand for Tradition, so also are we sure that he will intercede on behalf of these very bishops, that they also might have the courage and clearsightedness to follow his courageous and exemplary stand against modernism. Let us also pray for him that after having lived through the Chruch’s passion and sufferings in such a personal a way, he might very soon enjoy the glory of Heaven”.