Archbishop
Lefebvre Explains Why We Must Fight The New Church
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one
At
the origin of the crisis: Some old errors, already condemned
I believe,
however, that we must go back to all those errors which Popes
have condemned over the last two centuries. Above all we have
experienced liberalism, communism, marxism, socialism, sillonism,
modernism and all the other “-isms” repeatedly condemned
by the Popes. During these two centuries we have had acts of condemnation
by the Holy Fathers. Take, for example, Pope Leo XIII’s
encyclical: Immortale Dei: Pope Leo XIII condemns the
new law. What he means by the new law is a wholly new conception,
a conception of life, a conception of the world, a conception
of the Church utterly different from the true conception of the
Church. It is based on the principles of freemasonry as summarized
in those three famous words: “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”
which may be very good but which can also stand for very bad things.
If the liberty is a total liberty, that is if everything is left
to conscience there are no more laws, there is an end to all authority.
That is what is chiefly attacked in the words “Liberty,
Equality, Fraternity.” Authority is destroyed. That implies
the freedom of my conscience. I do as I please regardless of law
and of personal authority. Equality--we are all equal. We want
nothing to do with authority. Fraternity--but Fatherless. There
is no Father. There is a crowd fraternity. All the individuals
embrace one another but there is no Father. How is it possible
to conceive a fraternity lacking paternity--with no Father? It
is unimaginable, but so it is. That is what we were to be taught:
the ruin of authority and through that very event an attack on
the authority of God. It is a direct attack on God, since all
authority comes from God and through sharing in the authority
of God. That was stated by St. Paul. God is thus attacked directly.
The best proof is that the freemasons have offered sacrifices
to the goddess Reason, to Man, Man become God. Moreover, the Freemasons
are saying just the same things today. Never let it be forgotten.
We must not believe that it is all a thing of the past.
"If
to raise Man to the altar rather than set God there is the sin
of Lucifer," writes the former Grand Master of the Grand
Orient, M. Mitterand "every humanist since the time of
the Renaissance has been guilty of this sin." It was
one of the complaints brought against the freemasons when, for
the first time, they were excommunicated by Pope Clement XII in
1738. Unhappily, this freemason tells us: "Between the
policy of Pius XII and that of his successors there is a major
difference. For Pius XII the common good has a reactionary character,
almost fascist and distinctly anticommunist. For John XXIII and
afterwards for Paul VI the common good has a markedly progressive
character. The relationship of the powers has changed in the world
and the Church realizes the fact." Obviously, all that
is seen through the eyes of a freemason. I am not saying that
I concur with what that man says. But it is those people who are
behind all these changes. You may be sure that they have not been
idle in the council and, you may be very sure, round about it.
"Something has changed in the Church," says
Mitterand, the Grand Master of the Grand Orient. "The
replies set down by the Pope to such burning questions as the
celibacy of the clergy and birth control are fiercely contested
within the very bosom of the Church, some bishops, some priests
and members of the laity have questioned the words of the Sovereign
Pontiff himself. In the eyes of a freemason a man who disputes
dogma is already a freemason without his apron." That
is what those people are saying and they know what they are talking
about.
Here is
another book written by a freemason, "Ecumenism seen
by a Freemason" by M. Marsaudon of the Scottish rite.
This Marsaudon deals with ecumenism and the ecumenism which obtained
during the Council. "Catholics, especially conservatives,
should not forget that all roads lead to God. They should abide
by this brave idea of freedom of conscience which, and here one
may truly speak of revolution, starting from our Masonic lodges,
has spread magnificently above the doctrine of St. Peter."
Well! What is there to be said? It is all too true, alas, that
the Council showed an unwillingness to define its terms. Hence
the ambiguous and equivocal terminology used. And from these ambiguous
and equivocal terms the post-conciliar results have been derived.
Fr. Schillebeckx himself expressly admitted it and even printed
it in a review: "We have used equivocal terms during the
Council and we know that we will afterwards draw from them."
Those people knew what they were doing since on the subcommittees
there were all those modern theologians--Schillebeckx, Hans Küng,
Rahner, Congar, Leclerc and Murphy. They were all on the sub-commissions.
This was because commissions could name subcommittees and so nominate
those theologians who knew perfectly well where they were going.
It is they who are guilty of the situation in which we find ourselves.
Steeped as they are in modernist ideas, they are determined by
all the means in their power to force the Church to become modernist.
We must not let ourselves be hoodwinked by these tactics, must
we? We must keep our eyes open.
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Fr
Hans Küng
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What
is the present method of forcing us to become modernists or to
espouse liberal ideas? It is done by recycling,
as I myself can witness within my own Congregation. In these formation
sessions the first statement made is a statement repeated in the
pamphlet "The Faith, Word for Word" to which
I referred a short time ago, published by the office of the Archbishopric
of Paris. The first words are: Admit the change.
Admit the change: yet once more, as I have just said, we must
make our seminarians, our priests, all those who come to these
formation sessions realize that changes have been carried out
and that we must change. The second, more delicate
operation consists in finding out the differing ways in which
Christians have appreciated, in these diverse changes, the very
fact of change. This observation is very important
because opposition at present is a matter rather of spontaneous
and unconscious attitudes to change than of a precise assessment
of what is at stake in particular changes. Two attitudes seem
to emerge as typical though all possible transitional stages must
be borne in mind. “According to the first, some novelties
are conceded after working out the way in which each follows the
other. This is the attitude of many Christians, many Catholics
who are yielding step by step. The second are prepared to accept
a general updating of the rites of the Christian Faith on the
threshold of a new culture." I repeat: "The
second are prepared to accept a general updating of the rites
of the Christian Faith on the threshold of a new culture. It is
enough for them to reassure themselves regularly of its fidelity
to the Faith of the Apostles." It is very late and there
will be time enough to deal with the Faith of the Apostles once
the Faith has been utterly destroyed. It goes without saying that
this operation, this new pattern of problems, is what must be
inculcated into Catholics today. If the second diagnosis
is accepted, a third operation becomes necessary. "The
Christian cannot fail to see a formidable danger to the Faith
in this." That is what they themselves are admitting
explicitly. It is terrible, incredible. "Will it not
purely and simply disappear together with the dubious theories
which brought it to that pass? He rightly demands a fundamental
assurance which will carry him beyond those first sterile attitudes.
That preliminary assurance should include the following elements
at least." You will see what is left to us of our Faith:
"The Holy Ghost is just He who comes to the aid of believers
in the workings of history." We therefore have recourse
to the Holy Ghost only. There is no longer a hierarchy; there
is no longer a magisterium. Nothing is left. Christians are directly
inspired by the Holy Ghost. Today, all this is being put into
practice by Pentecostalism. They hold meetings as we do. We might
invoke the Holy Ghost and suddenly one of you would begin speaking
in an unknown tongue--one might speak Arabic, another Armenian,
another Hebrew. All this is of the Devil. It cannot be otherwise.
Hence the Holy Ghost comes first. Then the one constant in our
Faith is the person of Jesus Himself. Jesus, but what do they
mean by Jesus? Finally, this is the assurance they give to the
faithful who are afraid of losing their Faith by reason of this
new presentation of questions: "Vatican II assuredly
offers many indications of a change in the approach to problems."
We have indeed embarked on a campaign of subversion. There is
no other word for it--a campaign of subversion.
CONCLUSION:
We must come to a final decision: what are we to do?
We have
looked quickly at an example of this subversion in the priest.
Now, whatever touches the priest naturally affects the Church
and the faithful. Well! We have no right to let ourselves engage
in this adventure. It will pass as all heresies have passed, as
all errors have passed, as all that has befallen and shaken the
Church has passed. The Church has experienced storms. This one
is terrible for it attacks the very roots of the people's faith,
alas through those whose duty it is to protect the Faith of believers.
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Fr.
Yves Congar OP (1904-1995) |
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I have been
asked to put together in book form the few lectures and articles
I have published since the Council. As its exergue (Editor’s
note: That of the book “A Bishop speaks”) I wrote:
"We are being made to disobey all tradition through obedience."
You will reply: "But it is our priests who ask it of
us. It is a Bishop who asks it of us. Look, it is a document issued
by the Catechetical Commission or some other official Commission.
What would you have me do?" Lose the Faith, then! No,
no. No-one, not even the Pope, not even an Angel, has the right
to make you lose the Faith. No-one has the right to make one lose
the Faith. Faith in Jesus Christ is our means of salvation; it
is the way of salvation. We have no right to lose the Catholic
Faith; rather we must do all we can to keep it alive within us.
You Christian
parents, protect the Faith of your children in your families and
in your homes. Read and re-read the Tridentine Catechism, the
finest, the most perfect and the most complete expression of our
Faith. Keep the Faith in our schools also. Go into schools; if
the children are being led to lose the Faith, complain. Do not
let your children's teachers bring them to lose the Faith. Go
and find your priests. There are still good priests and God knows
what a joy it is for me to see so many of them here. Give them
your support, encourage them, they are suffering from the situation.
They feel that you are there and that you are making this appeal
to them: "Fathers, protect the Faith of our children. We
beg you give us the truth which saves our souls." They will
do so and be happy to give you the truths of the Faith. Ask that
of all who should protect your Faith.
Next, form
prayer groups. We must pray, pray, pray. Farm prayer groups; say
the rosary bath at home and in groups in the parish. Ask your
priests to expound the rosary, ask them to give you the benediction
of the Blessed Sacrament. Arrange services for the adoration of
the Blessed Sacrament and night vigils. In recent years I have
traveled a great deal and can assure you that there is a Catholic
revival. Many Catholics feel that all is not well with the Church,
that such a state of affairs must not be allowed to continue,
that there is a danger of their losing the Faith. Now these Catholics
are getting together to say the rosary. They are asking the priest's
permission to keep night vigils of adoration in the churches.
All that is splendid, God, in His goodness, will not be deaf to
such a prayer and supplication. That is what we should do today.
I do not
know whether all the apparitions of which we hear are authentic.
I dare not assert it. But it is not surprising that the Blessed
Virgin should come and help us to preserve the Faith. The more
one may be encouraged to visit places where the Blessed Virgin
has certainly appeared, the more circumspect we should be where
there is no real confirmation of her coming. In any case an almost
certain sign of the truth of an apparition is the conversion of
souls--not a dubious conversion, not a flash in the pan, but a
true conversion. There may often be about these pilgrimages occurrences
not altogether normal, hysterics, unbalanced people, or people
who seek nothing else: people who, once convinced of the reality
of an apparition, have nothing else in their heads and feel that
it is this which will save them. For them everything else in the
Church ceases to count--the sacraments, the hierarchy, nothing
matters any longer. The danger is great. We must not allow ourselves
to be drawn along that road.
As for me,
Providence gave me the opportunity of establishing a seminary,
through a Brotherhood of Priests. Mgr. Charriere signed the permit
for its foundation. This Brotherhood resembles the Missions Etrangères.
Yet, in my mind, no field of activity for these future priests
is excluded. They will go wheresoever the bishops call them. If
one day China opens its gates and Russia its doors, if they are
called to South America, Africa or Europe wherever there is a
demand and these priests are welcomed they will go as a group.
They will obviously go under contract to the Bishop since they
form a Society. They are not priests coming from dioceses and
returning to their dioceses to be incardinated there. No, they
are priests, members of a Brotherhood, members of a Society, who
will go where the Superior General sends them and where they are
called by the Bishops who wish to receive them but, of course,
under certain conditions. I assure you that I am very happy in
what God has given me to do at present when I see the generosity
of these seminarians. I assure you, it is not wasted. Do not be
discouraged or pessimistic. A really sound youth still exists.
Our eighty seminarians are very good, very generous.
They are
not children. Most of them have university degrees. There are
two qualified doctors, three or four engineers, one of them a
graduate of the Centrale; another who, after seven years' study,
is a Master of Biology, besides several graduates in Mathematics,
Law and Arts. They are not juveniles who have come to take shelter
with me seeking I know not what, but young men who have thought
the matter over seriously and come with intent to be true priests.
Two thirds are French; the next group numerically is that from
the United States. Then one Canadian, three Englishmen, two Germans,
four Swiss, an Italian, a Spaniard and two Australians. You see
the seminary is well and truly international. They get on with
one another perfectly.
From now
on I shall have a little group of American priests in the United
States who will gather together young seminarians and prepare
them for the seminary at Écône. Later, when God so
wills, we shall have another seminary in the United States. I
have also an establishment in London, one in Paris and two houses
in Switzerland--the house in Fribourg and the house at Ecône,
which is the senior seminary, staffed by twelve professors coming
from allover the world. Two of them are Dominican professors from
the University of Fribourg. As a professional body I believe it
to be as good as I could ever wish. I now have a house for my
young priests at Albano, near Rome.
As soon as
I have young priests they will be sent to Rome to become attached
to it. I want them to be Romans, Roman Catholics, attached to
the Sovereign Pontiff, attached to the magisterium of the Church
and attached to the Catholic Church so that they may understand
and may live on all the memories of Rome. That is briefly what
I am doing and, I must say, doing with great satisfaction.
PART
2: Declaration of November 21st, 1974.
(Archbishop
Lefebvre made this declaration Nov. 21st, 1974 to the SSPX members,
especially seminarians and teachers of the Écône
Seminary. It has been made public by the archbishop in January
1975 in the “Itinéraires” magazine, issue #
189).
We cleave,
with all our heart and with all our soul, to Catholic Rome, the
guardian of the Catholic Faith and of the traditions necessary
for the maintenance of that Faith and to eternal Rome, mistress
of wisdom and truth.
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Ecône
before its aquisition by the SSPX
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On the other
hand we refuse and have always refused to follow the Rome of the
neo-Protestant trend clearly manifested throughout Vatican Council
II and, later, in all the reforms born of it.
All these
reforms have contributed and are still contributing to the destruction
of the Church, the ruin of the Priesthood, the abolishing of the
Sacrifice of the Mass and of the Sacraments, the disappearance
of the religious life, to naturalist and Teilhardian teaching
in the universities, seminaries and catechetics, a teaching born
of liberalism and Protestantism and often condemned by the solemn
magisterium of the Church.
No authority,
not even the highest in the hierarchy, can force us to abandon
or diminish our Catholic Faith, clearly laid down and professed
by the magisterium of the Church for nineteen hundred years. "But,"
said St. Paul, "though we or an angel from heaven preach
any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto
you, let him be accursed" (Galatians I. 8).
Is not that
what the Holy Father is telling us again today? And if there appears
to be a certain contradiction between his words and his deeds
as in the acts of the dicasteries. We abide by what has always
been taught and turn a deaf ear to the Church's destructive innovations.
It is not
possible profoundly to modify the "lex orandi" without
modifying the "lex credendi" To the new Mass there corresponds
a new catechism, a new priesthood, new seminaries, new universities,
the charismatic and Pentecostal Church--all opposed to orthodoxy
and to the age-old magisterium of the Church.
Born of liberalism
and modernism, this Reform is poisoned through and through. It
begins in heresy and ends in heresy even if not all its acts are
formally heretical. Hence it is impossible for any informed and
loyal Catholic to embrace this Reform or submit himself to it
in any way whatsoever.
The only
way of salvation for the faithful and the doctrine of the Church
is a categorical refusal to accept the Reform.
It is for
this cause that with no rebellion, no bitterness, no resentment,
we carry on our work of training priests under the star of the
timeless magisterium, convinced that we can render no greater
service to the Holy Catholic Church, the Sovereign Pontiff and
future generations.
It is for
this cause that we hold firmly by all that has been believed and
practiced in the Faith, in morals, in worship, in the teaching
of the catechism, the molding of a priest and the institution
of the Church, that eternal Church codified in her books before
the modernist influence of the Council made itself felt, awaiting
the time when the true light of Tradition shall scatter the darkness
clouding the skies of eternal Rome.
In so doing,
by the grace of God, the help of the Virgin Mary, of St. Joseph
and St. Pius X, we are assured of remaining faithful to the Holy
Roman and Catholic Church, to all the successors of Peter, and
of remaining "fideles dispensatores mysteriorum Domini
Nostri Jesu Christi in Spiritu Sancto." Amen.
PART 3: Letter to Friends and Benefactors
(No. 9)
(This
letter was made public in October 1975)
Dear Friends
and Benefactors,
It
seems to me that the moment has come to bring to your knowledge
the latest events concerning Ecône, and the attitude
which in conscience before God we believe we must take in these
grave circumstances. As far as the appeal to the Apostolic Signatura
is concerned, the last attempt on the part of my lawyer to find
out from the Cardinals forming the Supreme Court exactly how the
Pope intervened in the proceedings being brought against us was
blocked by a handwritten letter from Cardinal Villot to Cardinal
Staffa, President of the Supreme Court, ordering him to forbid
any appeal.
As for my
audience with the Holy Father, that too has been refused by Cardinal
Villot. I shall obtain an audience only when my work has disappeared
and when I have conformed my way of thinking to that which reigns
supreme in today's reformed Church.
However,
the most important event is undoubtedly the signed letter from
the Holy Father, presented by the Papal Nuncio in Berne, as the
Pope's own writing, but in fact typewritten, which takes up in
a new form the arguments, or rather the statements, of the Cardinals'
letter. This I received on July 10th last. It calls on me to make
a public act of submission "to the Council, the post-conciliar
reforms and the directives binding the Pope himself."
A second letter from the Pope which I received on September 10th
urgently required an answer to the first. This time, through no
desire of my own, my only aim being to serve the Church in the
humble and very consoling task of giving Her true priests devoted
to Her service, we found ourselves confronted with the Church
authorities at their topmost level on earth, the Pope. I therefore,
sent a reply to the Holy Father, expressing our submission to
the successor of Peter in his essential function, that of faithfully
transmitting to us the deposit of the faith.
If we consider
the facts from a purely material point of view, it is a trifling
matter: the suppression of a Society which has barely come into
existence, with no more than a few dozen members, the closing
down of a Seminary--how little it really is, hardly worth anyone's
attention. On the other hand, if for a moment we heed the reactions
stirred up in Catholic and even Protestant, Orthodox and atheist
circles, and that throughout the entire world, the countless articles
in the world press, reactions of enthusiasm and true hope, reactions
of spleen and opposition, reactions of mere curiosity, we cannot
but think, however we may regret it, that Ecône is posing
a problem reaching far beyond the modest confines of the Society
and its Seminary, a deep and unavoidable problem that cannot be
brushed aside, nor solved by any formal order, from whatever authority
it may come. For the problem of Ecône is the problem of
thousands and millions of Christian consciences, distressed, divided
and torn for the past ten years by the agonizing dilemma--whether
to obey and risk losing one's faith, or disobey and keep one's
faith intact; whether to obey and join in the destroying of the
Church, or to disobey and work for Her preservation and continuation;
whether to accept the reformed liberal Church, or to remain a
member of the Catholic Church.
It is because
Ecône is at the heart of this crucial problem, one rarely
confronting Catholic consciences in so extensive and grave a form,
that many have turned to this house which has steadfastly chosen
membership of the eternal Church and refused to join the reformed,
liberal Church. Now the Church, through her official representatives,
is ranging herself against Ecône's choice, thus publicly
condemning the traditional training of priests in the name of
the Second Vatican Council, in the name of post-conciliar reforms
and in the name of the post-conciliar directives binding on the
Pope himself. How can such opposition to Tradition in the name
of a Council and its practical application be explained? Can and
should one reasonably oppose a Council and its reforms? What is
more, can one and should one oppose the orders of a hierarchy
commanding one to follow the Council and all the official post-conciliar
changes? That is the problem, today, after ten post-conciliar
grave years, confronting our conscience, as a result of the condemnation
of Ecône. It is not possible to give a prudent answer to
these questions without making a rapid survey of the history of
liberalism and Catholic liberalism over the last centuries. The
present can only be explained by the past.
Principles
of liberalism
Let us begin
by defining in a few words the liberalism of which the most typical
historical example is Protestantism. Liberalism claims to free
man from every constraint not wished or accepted by himself.
The
First liberation: frees the intelligence from every
objective truth imposed on it. The Truth must be accepted as differing
according to the individual or group of individuals, so it is
necessarily divided. The making of the Truth and the search for
it go on all the time. None can claim to have exclusive or complete
possession of it. It is obvious how contrary that is to our Lord
Jesus Christ and His Church.
The
Second liberation: frees the faith from any definitively
formulated dogmas imposed on us, to which the intelligence and
will must submit. Dogmas, according to the liberal, must be regularly
submitted to the filter of reason and science, because science
is constantly progressing. Hence it is impossible to admit that
any revealed truth has been defined once and for all. The opposition
between such a principle and the Revelation of our Lord and His
divine authority must be obvious.
Lastly,
the Third liberation: frees us from
the law. The Law, according to the liberal, limits freedom and
imposes on it a restraint first moral and then physical. The law
and its restraints are an affront to human dignity and human conscience.
Conscience is the supreme law. The liberal confuses liberty with
license. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the living Law, as He is the
Word of God; we may measure yet again the depth of the opposition
between the liberal and Our Lord.
Consequences
of liberalism
The result
of liberal principles is the destruction of the philosophy of
being and refusal to define essences, thus taking refuge in nominalism,
or to define existentialism and evolutionism. All things are subject
to mutation and change.
A second
consequence, as grave as the first if not more so, is the denial
of the supernatural, and hence of original sin, of justification
by grace, of the true reason for the Incarnation, the sacrifice
of the Cross, the Church and the Priesthood. All our Lord's work
is falsified; in practical terms this is translated into a Protestant
view of the Liturgy of the Sacrifice of the Mass and of the Sacraments;
their purpose is no longer to apply the merits of the Redemption
to souls, to every single soul, in order to impart to it the grace
of divine life and to prepare it for eternal life through membership
of the Mystical Body of our Lord; from now on its central purpose
is to form part of a human community of a religious character.
The whole liturgical Reform reflects this change of direction.
Another
consequence: the denying of all personal authority as sharing
in the authority of God. Human dignity demands that man submit
only to what he agrees to accept. Since however no society can
live without authority, man will accept only authority approved
by the majority, because that represents the delegation of authority
by the majority of individuals to a designated person or group
of persons, such authority being never other than delegated.
Now these
principles and their consequences, requiring freedom of thought,
freedom of teaching, freedom of conscience, freedom to choose
one's own religion, these false freedoms which presuppose the
secular state, the separation of Church and State, have, since
the Council of Trent, been steadily condemned by the successors
of Peter, beginning with the Council of Trent itself.
Condemnation
of liberalism by the magisterium of the Church
It is the
Church's opposition to Protestant liberalism which gave rise to
the Council of Trent, whence derives the considerable importance
of that dogmatic Council in the struggle against liberal errors,
in the defense of the Truth and the Faith, in particular in the
codifying of the Liturgy of the Mass and the Sacraments, in the
definitions concerning justification by grace.
Let us list
a few of the most important documents, completing and confirming
doctrine of the Council of Trent.
- The Bull
"Auctorem fidei" of Pius VI against the Council
of Pistoia.
- The Encyclical
"Mirari vos" of Gregory XVI against Lamennais.
- The Encyclical
"Quanta cura" and the Syllabus of Pius IX.
- The Encyclical
"Immortale Dei" of Lea XIII condemning the
new law on the secularisation of States.
- The Papal
Acts of St. Pius X against the Sillon and modernism, especially
the Decree "Lamentabili" and the Anti-modernist Oath.
- The Encyclical
"Divini Redemptoris" of Pius XI against communism.
- The Encyclical
"Humani generis" of Pius XII.
Thus liberalism
and liberal Catholicism have always been condemned by Peter's
successors in the name of the Gospel and of apostolic Tradition.
The obvious conclusion is of capital importance in deciding what
attitude to adopt in order to show that we are indefectibly at
one with the Church's Magisterium and with Peter's successors.
None is more attached than we to Peter's successor reigning today
when he echoes the apostolic Traditions and all his predecessors'
teachings. For it is the very definition of Peter's successor
that he shall guard the deposit of Faith and faithfully hand it
down. Here is what Pope Pius IX proclaimed on the subject in his
Encyclical "Pastor aeternum": “For
the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter, that
by this revelation they might make known new doctrine, but that
by His assistance they might strictly keep and faithfully expound
the revelation or deposit of faith delivered through the Apostles.”
Influence
of liberalism on Vatican II Council
We now come
to the question which so concerns us: How is it possible that
anyone can, in the name of the Second Vatican Council, oppose
the age-old apostolic Traditions, and so bring into question the
Catholic Priesthood itself, and its essential act, the Holy Sacrifice
of the Mass?
A grave
and tragic ambiguity hangs over the Second Vatican Council, one
presented by the Popes themselves in terms making for that ambiguity:
for instance, the Council of the "aggiornamento," the
"bringing up-to-date" of the Church, the pastoral non-dogmatic
Council, as the Pope again called it just a month ago. This way
of presenting the Council, in the situation of Church and the
world as they were in 1962, ran very grave risks which the Council
did not succeed in avoiding. It was easy to interpret those words
in such a way that the Council was laid wide open to the errors
of liberalism. A liberal minority among the Council Fathers, above
all among the Cardinals, was very active, very well organized
and fully supported by a constellation of modernist theologians
and numerous secretariats. Take for example the enormous flow
of printed matter from the I.D.O.C., subsidized by the Bishops'
Conferences of Germany and Holland. Everything played into their
hands in demanding the instant adaptation of the Church to modern
man, in other words to man eager to be freed of all shackles,
in their presenting the Church as out of touch and impotent, in
their confessing to the sins of their predecessors. The Church
is presented as being as guilty as the Protestants and Orthodox
for the divisions of old. She should ask forgiveness of present-day
Protestants. The Traditional Church is guilty in her wealth, in
her triumphalism; the Council Fathers feel guilty at being out
of the world rather than of the world; they are already blushing
for their episcopal insignia, soon they will be ashamed of their
cassocks.
This atmosphere
of liberation will soon spread to all fields, and will show in
the spirit of collegiality which will veil the shame felt at exercising
a personal authority so opposed to the spirit of modern man, let
us say liberal man. The Pope and Bishops will exercise their authority
collegially in Synods, Bishops' Conferences, Priests' Councils.
Finally the Church is opened wide to the principles of the modern
world. The Liturgy too will be liberalized, adapted, subjected
to experiments by Bishops' Conferences. Religious liberty, ecumenism,
theological research, the revision of Canon Law will all attenuate
the triumphalism of a Church which once proclaimed herself the
only ark of salvation! The Truth is to be found divided among
all religions, communal research will carry the worldwide religious
community forward around the Church.
Geneva Protestants--Marsaudon
in his book Ecumenism as seen by a Free Mason--liberals
such as Fesquet, are triumphant. At last the era of Catholic States
will disappear. All religions equal before the Law! "The
Church free in the free State," Lamennais' formula! Now the
Church is in touch with the modern world! The Church's privileged
status before the Law and all the documents cited above turn into
museum pieces for an age that has outgrown them! Read the beginning
of the Schema on The Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et
Spes), the description of the way in which modern times are
changing; read the conclusions, they are pure liberalism. Read
the Declaration on Religious Freedom and compare it with the Encyclical
Mirari vos of Gregory XVI, or with Quanta cura
of Pius IX, and you can observe the contradiction almost word
for word. To say that liberal ideas had no influence on the Second
Vatican Council is to fly in the face of the evidence. The internal
and external evidence both make that influence abundantly clear.
Influence
of liberalism on the post-conciliar reforms and trends
And if we
pass on from the Council to the "reforms" and "directives"
since the Council, the proof is so clear as to be blinding. Now,
let us note carefully that in the letters from Rome calling upon
us to make a public act of submission, the three things--The Council,
its reforms and the directives following from it are presented
as indissolubly linked. Hence those who speak of a mistaken interpretation
of the Council, as if the Council was perfect in itself and could
not be interpreted in the light of the reforms and directives
are grievously mistaken. Clearer than any written account of the
Council, the show how the Council officially intended them
to be interpreted. Now, on this point we need not elaborate:
the facts speak for themselves and they are eloquent, alas all
too sadly eloquent.
What still
remains intact of the pre-conciliar Church? Where has the self-destruction
(as Pope Paul called it) not been at work? Catechetics - seminaries
- religious congregations - the liturgy of the Mass and the Sacraments
- the constitution of the Church - the concept of the Priesthood.
Liberal ideas have wrought havoc all round and are carrying the
Church far beyond Protestant ideas, to the amazement of Protestants
and to the reproach of the Orthodox.
One of the
most horrifying practical applications of these liberal principles
is the laying of the Church open to all errors, particularly the
most monstrous error ever thought up by Satan--communism. Communism
now has official access to the Vatican, and its world revolution
is made markedly easier by the official non-resistance of the
Church, nay, by her regular support of the revolution, despite
the despairing warnings of cardinals who have been through communist
jails.
The refusal
by this pastoral Council to issue any official condemnation of
communism alone suffices to disgrace it for all time, when one
remembers the tens of millions of martyrs, of people having their
personalities scientifically destroyed in psychiatric hospitals,
serving as guinea-pigs for all sorts of experiments. And the pastoral
Council which brought together 2,350 Bishops said not a word,
in spite of the 450 signatures of Fathers demanding a condemnation,
which I myself took to Mgr. Felici, secretary of the Council,
together with Mgr. Sigaud, Archbishop of Diamantina.
Conclusion:
We have the duty to reject subversive novelties
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Pope
Gregory XVI (1765-1846) |
Need the
analysis be pushed any further to reach its conclusion? These
lines seem to me to be enough to justify a refusal to follow this
Council, these reforms, and these trends in all their liberalism
and neo-modernism.
We should
like to reply to the objection that will certainly be levied against
it in the matter of obedience, and of the jurisdiction held by
those who seek to impose this liberalization on us. Our reply
is--In the Church, law and jurisdiction are at the service of
the Faith, the chief end of the Church. There is no law, no jurisdiction
which can impose on us a lessening of our Faith.
We accept
this jurisdiction and this law when they are at the service of
the Faith. But who can be the judge of that? The Tradition, the
Faith taught for 2000 years. Every Catholic can and must resist
anyone in the Church who lays hands on his Faith, the Faith of
the eternal Church, upheld by his childhood catechism.
The defense
of his Faith is the first duty of every Christian, more especially
of every priest and bishop. Wherever an order carries with it
the danger of corrupting Faith and morals, "disobedience"
becomes a grave duty.
It is because
we believe that our whole faith is endangered by the post-conciliar
reforms and changes that it is our duty to "disobey,"
and to maintain Traditions. The greatest service we can render
the Catholic Church, the successor of Peter the salvation of souls
and of our own, is to say no to the reformed liberal Church, because
we believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God made man, who
is neither liberal nor reformable.
One last
objection--The Council is a council as were others. In its ecumenicity
and the manner of its summoning it resembles them. In its object,
and that is the essential it does not. A non-dogmatic Council
may not be infallible; it is so only in so far as it reaffirms
traditional dogmatic truths.
How do you
justify your attitude towards the Pope?
We are the
keenest defenders of his authority as the successor of Peter,
but our attitude is governed by the words of Pius IX quoted above.
We applaud the Pope when he echoes Tradition and is faithful to
his mission of handing down the deposit of the Faith. We accept
innovations in close conformity with Tradition and the Faith.
We do not feel bound by any obedience to accept innovations not
in accordance with Tradition which threaten our Faith. In that
case, we take our stand on the papal documents quoted above.
We do not
see how, in conscience, a Catholic layman, priest or bishop can
adopt any other attitude towards the grievous crisis the Church
is going through. "Nihil innovetur nisi quod traditum
est"--innovate nothing, but hand dawn Tradition.
May Jesus
and Mary help us to remain faithful to our episcopal promises!
"Call not true what is false, call not good what is evil."
That is what we were told at our consecration.
