April
2, 1999 Good Friday
Dear Friends
and Benefactors,
A few weeks ago
a young priest who had only known the New Mass, celebrated for the
first time the Tridentine Mass in one of our priories. After his thanksgiving,
a colleague asked him for his first impressions. "This Mass is sacred,
mysterious, full of grace. The other Mass is empty."
Another young
priest, attending the Tridentine Mass for the first time, cried out,
"We have been deceived for 30 years."
Thirty years
of the "Novus Ordo Missae", thirty years of emptiness! An emptiness
which has emptied out Catholicism, emptying out the churches and often
people's faith. Without any doubt, a major cause of the appalling
crisis the Church is going through must be the loss of the spirit
of faith and the spirit of sacrifice, each mainly brought about by
the Novas Ordo Missae.
The innovators
wanted a new Mass corresponding to the spirit of the Council, an adaptation
to the spirit of the world, a lever to push forward ecumenism. Undeniably,
the most effective means of inserting the spirit of the Council into
the life of the Church has been the New Mass. One may say that the
introduction of the New Mass has achieved its purpose, to the great
misfortune of our holy Mother Church. We cannot agree with those who
would blame the disaster only on the abuses.
Archbishop Lefebvre
wrote in 1980, "To the authorities in Rome we have always stated that
we considered the Novas Ordo Missae to be dangerous for the faith
of priests and people, and so it would be unthinkable for us to gather
seminarians together and form them around the altar of this New Mass.
Experience is proving us right. The sense of the faith amongst the
people, wherever it is not yet corrupted, approves wholeheartedly
of what we are doing, even amongst Catholics no longer practicing
the faith. I would go so far as to say that anyone who still has a
little common sense encourages and congratulates us. What is a society
or a family without any past, or tradition? In which case, what can
the Church be, that is nothing other than Tradition?"
Twenty years
after Archbishop Lefebvre wrote these words, the state of the Church
confirms his analysis a thousand times over. It would be an oversimplification
to reduce the Church's crisis merely to a question of the Mass. However,
the Mass is a central pivot of that crisis, being the carrier of a
new spirit which breaks with the spirit of the Church.
The spirit of
the Church is a spirit of adoring the one true God to whom is due
all honour and glory; it is a spirit of sacrifice, of partaking in
the sacrifice of the High Priest and Redeemer, our Lord Jesus Christ;
it is a supernatural spirit of faith and love which makes us see,
as God Himself sees, the realities of the world and God, sin and salvation,
as they truly are.
In the same text
quoted above, the Archbishop also said: " We should not be surprised
if, in the storm devastating the Church, the frail Society of St.
Pius X should also be undergoing violent attacks. On the one side
it gets attacked for being too much opposed to the Council and to
Rome, too attached to Tradition in dogma and the liturgy, too set
against the conciliar reforms and ecumenism, etc. .... On the other
side it gets attacked for keeping on the contrary too close to Rome,
which has turned into the seat of the Antichrist, a dependency of
Hell, and for opposing too weakly the conciliar reforms."
"To all these
attacks we reply with deeds rather than words. For we have a horror
of sterile polemics. Our position has always been clear and it has
not changed since the Society was founded: we continue to do what
the Church has always done and always taught, especially when it comes
to the formation of priests." "Church history teaches us how to act
in these difficult circumstances, and it teaches us above all to bear
in mind that `Man frets while God leads.' What are we in the hands
of God? Nothing! But with nothing He can do anything. An unshakable
faith in Jesus Christ is what sustains and inspires us, and nothing
else. He holds events in the hollow of His hand and His truth will
not perish, even if the enemy has worked his way into the heart of
the Vatican."
"The Society
is meant by God as all its history goes to prove, and all the good
that it has done, all the evil that it has prevented, show where it
came from and how it is needed."
"Let nobody ask
me to change position, be it the authorities in Rome or the partisans
of schism. This position did not come from me, it draws its strength
from the Church's Truth and Wisdom, from her dogmatic and historical
Tradition, from the conduct of the Saints and especially the last
two Saints who were Popes, Plus V and Pius X."
". . . Let us
remain united in our convictions, let us not be deflected by false
arguments of disobedience or abstract logic, rather let us keep the
solid and simple faith of the just and faithful soul, following the
example of Mary and Joseph and all their imitators" (Editorial of
the Society's in-house magazine, February 16, 1980).
Such is still
our position today, 19 years later, and with the help of God we mean
not to change it. May the abundance of graces connected to the mysteries
and ceremonies of Holy Week have strengthened you in the faith and
nourished your souls in the love of Our Lord who "did not hesitate
to be delivered into the hands of His enemies, and to undergo the
torment of the Cross" (Good Friday prayer).
Always deeply
touched by your generosity, from the goodness of God we beg for you
an overflowing blessing.
+Bernard
Fellay
