The Society of St. Pius X turns Thirty!
Rev. Fr. Patrice Laroche, Professor at the Society’s Seminary in Zaitzkofen, Germany

When one thinks of the thirty years in which the Priestly Society of St. Pius X has been in existence since it was founded canonically in Fribourg, Switzerland, on 1 November 1970 by Bishop Charriere, who approved by a decree the statutes which had been drawn up by Archbishop Lefebvre, one cannot help but call to mind the teaching of St. Pius X in his catechism concerning the history of the Church:

"Those who read the history of the Church with suitable dispositions and meditate the visible action of Divine Providence, which confers life and holiness on the Church, and watches over her preservation, will be astonished at this prodigy. In truth, Divine Providence has raised up since the first centuries of the Church those great men, the imperishable glory of Christianity, who, full of wisdom and superhuman power, have combated heresies and errors victoriously as often as they have appeared...Similarly, they will admire the way in which those religious orders and congregations which have been approved and blessed by the Church, and in which Christian life has flourished since the fourth century, have arisen according to God’s Will at the due and proper times and places [...]. History shows that these religious congregations succeed one another and renew themselves down the ages, having ever a goal adapted to the particular needs of the period in question: prayer, teaching, apostolate, various works of charity."

The story of the Society of St. Pius X and of its founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, is a beautiful illustration of these remarks of its heavenly patron. Msgr. Lefebvre had the grace to see that the current crisis in the Church is due to the liberal spirit which has entered into it. An inadequate formation received in many seminaries and universities had left the clergy vulnerable, as became clearly manifest at Vatican II.

In his Spiritual Journey, Archbishop Lefebvre recalls an inspiration which he received one day in the Cathedral of Dakar: "To transmit, before the progressive degradation of the priestly ideal, in all of its doctrinal purity and in all its missionary charity, the Priesthood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, just as He conferred it on to His Apostles, just as the Roman Church always transmitted it until the middle of the twentieth century." Nevertheless, when, in 1969, some young men sought him out in order to ask his advice concerning their priestly formation, the Archbishop had absolutely no intention of founding a seminary. He directed them to the Catholic University in Fribourg, where these theology students would be able to meet up with one another and lead, to certain extent, a life in community. A little later, the Archbishop gave in once more to the entreaties of these students who wished to become priests, and who besought him not to abandon them, by drawing up the statutes of the Society of St. Pius X.

As the Archbishop so often repeated, his line of conduct consisted in always following Providence, and never going in advance of it. Such was his attitude particularly with regard to the foundation of the Society: "If God desires this work," he used to say, "it will see the light of the day." It was not he who wanted the Society; he had allowed himself to be guided by the progress of events, which were so many signs given him by Providence. And in fact, to his great surprise, Bishop Charriere gave his approbation willingly to the Society, the development and growth of which was henceforth to be rapid consequent to the purchase of the house at Ecône.

Very soon a steady stream of students was arriving there from all continents. The majority were French, which caused no small irritation to the French bishops, who sought to have Ecône and the Society condemned.  After all, were not the reservations expressed concerning the second Vatican Council and the refusal to celebrate the New Mass evident signs of the dangerous nature of Msgr. Lefebvre’s enterprise? With their interests well represented in Rome by Cardinal Villot, the French bishops obtained the (invalid) condemnation they desired in 1975.

Henceforth the Society was to lead a persecuted existence. Should he submit, close the doors of the seminary, and send the seminarians back home or advise them to return to seminaries where the Faith was being extinguished? Such was the dilemma confronting Archbishop Lefebvre. Was he to obey these unjust orders?  Some thought that he should.  "Follow the Pope even if he is mistaken," they said. St. Ignatius used to say that if the Pope were to suppress his congregation, he would need a quarter of an hour in order to place himself in the presence of God, and then he would find interior peace once more. He would have been ready to submit himself to an unjust order if such an order had been given him.

In 1975, however, things were completely different. The foundation of the Jesuits at the very moment when Protestantism was ravaging the western Christendom had certainly been providential. With centralized organization, and being suitably adapted to the times, the Society of Jesus had been well-equipped to combat the errors of the innovators. But it had never been the only congregation to do this. In 1975, the Society of St. Pius X stood alone in offering a truly traditional seminary formation, alone in rejecting the modern errors of liberalism and ecumenism, and alone in preserving the traditional rite of the Mass. The problem posed itself in completely different terms, then. It was not a case of refusing to submit to an unjust order, nor of accepting with humility the destruction of a personal work. It was a case of either continuing to fight for Christ the King against modernism, or of laying down arms and surrendering in order to avoid hardships and trouble. Archbishop Lefebvre did not choose the easy way out, and the subsequent course of events has proved him right.  Those who, impressed by the arguments in favour of a false obedience, or exhausted by a struggle to which they could see no end, have abandoned the fight, have all without exception changed their positions and accepted certain of the modern errors.

"Neither heretical nor schismatic"; such was Archbishop Lefebvre’s mandate. Just as he could not accept principles or practices of which the logical conclusion was the loss of the Faith, and which led one to become a heretic, so the founder of the Society of St. Pius X avoided being drawn into a schismatic attitude, such as that of the "sedevacantists" who distanced themselves from the Society and broke up into a multitude of fragmentary groups, and amongst whom a schismatic spirit is really to be found and a bitter zeal reigns.

It was not without pain that the Archbishop saw a certain number leave him for these reasons. However, as he had sought neither human success nor any personal consolation, he continued the work begun, ever keeping in very clear view the ideal to be attained in order to work effectively for the renewal of the Church. This renewal of the Church was to come through a renewal of the Priesthood, and, therefore, through the formation of a new generation of priests who would draw from their Priesthood and from the Mass their priestly spirituality and their supernatural growth: "The Society is placed especially under the patronage of Jesus the Eternal High Priest, Whose entire existence was, and remains priestly, and for Whom the Sacrifice of the Cross was the reason for His Incarnation. Thus the members of the Society, for whom ‘Mihi vivere Christus est - To me to live is Christ’ is a reality, live wholly oriented towards the Sacrifice of the Mass, which extends the Sacred Passion of Our Lord." (Statutes of the SSPX, I, 3)

Following the example of St. Pius X, the last pope to be canonized, whom he chose as the Society’s patron, Archbishop Lefebvre desired to "restore all things in Christ". Like St. Pius X, he knew that this would not come about through human means. It was, therefore, neither useful nor necessary to seek, as Vatican II had done, the means to open the Church to the world and to effect the necessary ‘bringing up-to-date’ (the notorious ‘aggiornamento’). It would suffice better to employ the means which Jesus Christ had left to His Church: preaching, the Mass and the Sacraments. Shortly before he departed from this life, the founder of the Society was still able to write: "One single thing is necessary for the continuation of the Catholic Church: fully Catholic bishops, who make no compromise with error, who found Catholic seminaries, where young candidates for the priesthood can nourish themselves with the milk of true doctrine, placing Our Lord Jesus Christ at the centre of their intellects, of their wills, of their hearts; who have a living faith, profound charity, a devotion without bounds, uniting them to Our Lord. They will ask, as did St. Paul, that we pray for them, that they will advance in understanding and wisdom of the Mysterium Christi, of the Mystery of Christ, where they will discover all of the divine treasures." (Spiritual Journey, p. ix)

Seeing the bad will or the incapacity of the Roman authorities to put into practice this program which is self-evident to anyone who has kept the Catholic spirit, Archbishop Lefebvre thought that the time had come for him to transmit that which he had received in its entirety by handing down also the Catholic episcopate. This he did in 1988, and here again recent events concerning the Society of St. Peter show that the decision taken then was completely justified.

In preserving it and in causing it to increase, Divine Providence has shown that it has blessed the Society of St. Pius X, which now counts some 400 priests amongst its members. But the fight is far from being over. Little by little the faithful priests are disappearing who collaborated with the Society, and who had continued loyally to say the Mass of their ordination despite all adversity. Thanks to the providential foundation of the Society of St. Pius X, supported by several other traditional communities whose foundation Msgr. Lefebvre had encouraged, as well as by the valiant priests of the diocese of Campos, Brazil, the Catholic Mass continues to be celebrated all over the world.

But the needs of the faithful are immense. More than ever, therefore, it is necessary "to pray the Lord of the harvest to send labourers into his harvest", and, more than ever, in the materialistic world in which we live, to take care to give young people an education which will enable them to respond to the appeal of God, and not to "turn away sadly" like the rich young man who had many goods to which he was too much attached.