Quote:

12 June 1976
Letter from Mgr. Benelli to the Apostolic Nuncio in Berne

Official letter from the Vatican Secretariat of State,
Registered under the number 307,554,
and addressed to Mgr. Ambrogio Marchioni,
Nuncio at Berne.

Monseigneur,

On the subject of Monseigneur Marcel Lefebvre, the Sovereign Pontiff asks me to communicate to you the three following points, and I ask you to bring them without delay to the knowledge of the prelate, at the same time giving him a copy of this letter:

1° You will hand over officially to Mgr. Lefebvre - who seemed to be absent from Switzerland on the 24 May - the Latin text and the French translation of the allocution given by His Holiness on the occasion of the recent secret Consistory of Cardinals, which all the bishops have already had opportunity of knowing.

Quote:2° You should, at the same time, inform Mgr. Marcel Lefebvre that, de mandato speciali Summi Pontificis, in the present circumstances and according to the prescriptions of canon 2373,1°, of the Code of Canon Law, he must strictly abstain from conferring orders from the moment he receives the present injunction.

Quote:3° In the discourse to the Consistory on 24 May 1976, the Holy Father was at pains to recall, himself, the fraternal approaches he had several times tried to make to Mgr. Lefebvre. He has said repeatedly, and now says again, that he is ready to receive him as soon as he has given public testimony of his obedience to the present successor of Saint Peter and of his acceptance of Vatican Council II. The conditions are well known to Mgr. Lefebvre: they are still those which I specified to him, in the name of His Holiness, when we met on 19 March, and of which I reminded him in my letter of 21 April last.

Quote:Well, the Holy Father has confirmed that no such testimony has yet reached him, in spite of the promises about it made several times.

Quote:Accept, Monseigneur, with my thanks for your mediation in this grave matter, the assurance of my faithful and cordial devotion in Our Lord.

+ J. Beneni
subst.

Quote:22 June 1976
Letter of Mgr. Lefebvre to Pope Paul VI
This letter was made public by Mgr. Lefebvre on 12 July 1976. He added a "preliminary note" which will be found below, in its chronological place.


Most Holy Father,

Will Your Holiness please fully understand the sorrow which grips me, and my stupefaction, on the one side at hearing the paternal appeals Your Holiness addresses to me, and on the other the cruelty of the blows which do not cease striking us, the latest of them striking worst of all my dear Seminarians and their families on the eve of their priesthood for which they have been preparing for five or six years.

Your Holiness has known me since 1948, and you know perfectly well what the faith is that I profess, the faith of your Credo, and you know equally my profound submission to the Successor of Peter which I renew into the hands of Your Holiness.

The trouble and the confusion spread in the Church these last years, which Your Holiness denounces in your last discourse to the Consistory, are precisely the reason for the serious reserves I make about the perilous adaptation of the Church to the modem world.

But I am deeply convinced that I am in full communion with the thought and the faith of Your Holiness. I implore Your Holiness, therefore, to allow me to have a dialogue with envoys chosen by you from among the Cardinals who have known me for a long time,1 and, with the help of God's grace, there is no doubt that the difficulties will be smoothed out.

Hoping that this suggestion will be acceptable to Your Holiness, I assure you of my entire availability, and of my respectful and filial affection in Christ and Mary.

+ Marcel Lefebvre

Quote:25 June 1976
Letter from Mgr. Benelli to Mgr. Lefebvre

Monseigneur,

The Holy Father has received your letter of 22 June. He desires me to inform you of his mind on this subject. Certainly as I myself said to you last April in a fraternal letter, what is asked of you calls for courageous obedience on your part, the more so as you have voluntarily pursued your course in what was manifestly a blind alley. But you cannot describe as cruelty the attitude of the Holy See, which is only registering your conduct and taking the measures it calls for.

On 19 March, I told you quite frankly what, in your negative judgments on the Council, in your frequent statements on the offices of the Holy See and their directives applying the Council, in your way of acting counter to the responsibility of other bishops in their respective dioceses, was inadmissible for His Holiness, contrary to ecclesial communion, and damaging for the unity and peace of the Church. All that was required of you was a clear admission that you were wrong on those points necessary for every Catholic spirit, and after that one could have considered the best way of facing the remaining problems arising from your acts.

Quote:But, not only have you not done that during more than three months, in spite of your promises, but you have continued on the same line, even taking new initiatives in several parts of Europe and America. This public scandal could not but draw on you a public admonition from the Holy Father, on 24 May last. You could see, moreover, that the Holy Father attacks with the same firmness abuses committed in the other sense, outside or contrary to the true sense of the Council, which you claim is the origin of your attitude.

Quote:But after this summons, severe but paternal and hopeful, you remain obstinate and propose to ordain priests in the same spirit, on your own responsibility, independently of the Ordinaries, within the framework of a Society which the competent ecclesiastical authority has juridically suspended.

The Holy Father charges me this very day to confirm the measure of which you have been informed in his name, de mandata speciali: you are to abstain, now, from conferring any order. Do not use as a pretext the confused state of the seminarians who were to be ordained: this is just the opportunity to explain to them and to their families that you cannot ordain them to the service of the Church against the will of the supreme Pastor of the Church. There is nothing desperate in their case: if they have good will and are seriously prepared for a presbyteral ministry in genuine fidelity to the Conciliar Church.

Quote:Those responsible will find the best solution for them, but they must begin with an act of obedience to the Church.

Quote:They were informed in good time. In case of transgression, they should know that they expose themselves to the canonical penalty provided in canon 2374;2 and if, temerariously, they disregard it, they expose themselves to irregularity3 (cf. canon 985, 7), while the one who ordains them would incur suspension for a year ab ordinum collatione, according to can. 2373, paras 1 and 3, independently of the order recently communicated to him by the mediation of the Apostolic Nuncio.

Rev. Father Dhanis, Consultor of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University, will bring you this letter. So that everything shall be perfectly clear, it goes without saying that he is ready to give whatever explanations you may want.

Accept, Monseigneur, the assurance of my prayer for your intentions in these grave circumstances, and of my devotion in Our Lord.

+ Benelli
subst.

Quote:It is therefore now clear that the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X has ceased to exist, that those who still claim to be members of it cannot pretend - a fortiori - to escape the jurisdiction of the diocesan Ordinaries (bishops), and, finally, that these same Ordinaries are gravely re-quested not to accord incardination in their dioceses to the young men who declare themselves to be engaged in the service of the Fraternity.

Quote:Yesterday morning at Écône, in an atmosphere of faith and spiritual radiance, there assembled, in a meadow prepared for the ceremonies, 1,500 recollected and visibly moved Catholics. There were Romans, Turinese, French from numerous provinces and also from Paris, Germans, citizens of Lichtenstein and, arriving at the very last moment, some Americans; there was an equally impressive number of Valaisians (the canton in which Écône is situated) and, most impressive of all, a very large number of priests from different orders.

There was no great pomp or ceremony: a tent to shelter the altar, Mgr. Lefebvre and his concelebrants (i. e. the newly ordained priests), and a large red carpet before the tent.

…When the time came for his sermon, Mgr. Lefebvre, obviously moved, explained that for him this day was an exceptional feast and a dramatic moment.

Quote:

29 June 1976
Sermon delivered by Archbishop Lefebvre at the Ordination of thirteen priests and thirteen sub-deacons
on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, 1976

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

My dear friends, dear confreres, dear brethren…who have come from every country, from all horizons: It is a joy for us to welcome you and to feel you so close to us at this moment so important for our Fraternity and also for the Church. I think that, if the pilgrims have permitted themselves to make this sacrifice, to journey day and night, to come from distant regions to participate in this ceremony, it is because they had the conviction that they were coming to participate in a ceremony of the Church, to participate in a ceremony which would fill their hearts with joy, because they will now have the certitude in returning to their homes that the Catholic Church continues.

Ah, I know well that the difficulties are numerous in this undertaking which we have been told is foolhardy. They say that we are in a deadlock. Why? Because from Rome have come to us, especially in the last three months, since 19 March in particular, the Feast of Saint Joseph, demands, supplications, orders, and threats to inform us that we must cease our activity , to inform us that we must not perform these ordinations to the priesthood. They have been pressing these last few days. In the last twelve days in particular, we have not ceased to receive messages and envoys from Rome enjoining us to refrain from performing these ordinations.

But if in all objectivity we seek the true motive animating those who ask us not to perform these ordinations, if we look for the hidden motive, it is because we are ordaining these priests that they may say the Mass of all time.1 It is because they know that these priests will be faithful to the Mass of the Church, to the Mass of Tradition, to the Mass of all time, that they urge us not to ordain them.

In proof of this, consider that six times in the last three weeks-six times-we have been asked to re-establish normal relations with Rome and to give as proof the acceptance of the new Rite; and I have been asked to celebrate it myself. They have gone so far as to send me someone who offered to concelebrate with me in the new Rite so as to manifest that I accepted voluntarily this new liturgy, saying that in this way all would be straightened out between us and Rome. They put a new Missal into my hands, saying "Here is the Mass that you must celebrate and that you shall celebrate henceforth in all your houses." They told me as well that if on this date, today, this 29th of June, before your entire assembly, we celebrated a Mass according to the new Rite, all would be straightened out henceforth between ourselves and Rome. Thus it is clear, it is evidence that it is on the problem of the Mass that the whole drama between Écône and Rome depends.

Are we wrong in obstinately wanting to keep the Rite of all time? We have, of course, prayed, we have consulted, we have reflected, we have meditated to discover if it is not indeed we who are in error, or if we do not really have a sufficient reason not to submit ourselves to the new Rite. And in fact, the very insistence of those who were sent from Rome to ask us to change Rite makes us wonder.

And we have the precise conviction that this new Rite of Mass expresses a new faith, a faith which is not ours, a faith which is not the Catholic Faith. This New Mass is a symbol, is an expression, is an image of a new faith, of a Modernist faith. For if the most holy Church has wished to guard throughout the centuries this precious treasure which She has given us of the Rite of Holy Mass which was canonized by Saint Pius V, it has not been without purpose. It is because this Mass contains our whole faith, the whole Catholic Faith: faith in the Most Holy Trinity, faith in the Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, faith in the Redemption of Our Lord Jesus Christ, faith in the Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ which flowed for the redemption of our sins, faith in supernatural grace, which comes to us from the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which comes to us from the Cross, which comes to us through all the Sacraments.

This is what we believe. This is what we believe in celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass of all time. It is a lesson of faith and at the same time a source of our faith, indispensable for us in this age when our faith is attacked from all sides. We have need of this true Mass, of this Mass of all time of this Sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ really to fill our souls with the Holy Ghost and with the strength of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now it is evident that the new Rite, if I may say so, supposes another conception of the Catholic religion-another religion. It is no longer the priest who offers the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, it is the assembly. Now this is an entire program -an entire program. Henceforth it is the assembly also that replaces authority in the Church. It is the assembly of bishops that replaces the power of (individual) bishops. It is the priests' council that replaces the power of the bishop in the diocese. It is numbers that command from now on in the Holy Church. And this is expressed in the Mass precisely because the assembly replaces the priest, to such a point that now many priests no longer want to celebrate Holy Mass when there is no assembly. Slowly but surely the Protestant notion of the Mass is being introduced into the Holy Church.2

And this is consistent with the mentality of modern man- absolutely consistent. For it is the democratic ideal which is the fundamental idea of modem man, that is to say, that the power lies with the assembly, that authority is in the people, in the masses, and not in God. And this is most grave. Because we believe that God is all-powerful; we believe that God has all authority; we believe that all authority comes from God. "Omnis potestas a Deo." All authority comes from God. We do not believe that authority comes from below. Now that is the mentality of modern man.

And the New Mass is not less than the expression of this idea that authority is at the base, and no longer in God. This Mass is no longer a hierarchical Mass; it is a democratic Mass. And this is most grave. It is the expression of a whole new ideology. The ideology of modern man has been brought into our most sacred rites.

And this is what is at present corrupting the entire Church. For by this idea of power bestowed on the lower rank, in the Holy Mass, they have destroyed the priesthood! They are destroying the priesthood, for what is the priest, if the priest no longer has a personal power, that power which is given to him by his ordination, as these future priests are going to receive it in a moment? They are going to receive a character, a character which will put them above the people of God! Nevermore shall they be able to say after the ceremony about to be performed, they shall never be able to say, "We are men like other men." This would not be true.

They will no longer be men like other men! They will be men of God. They will be men, I should say, who almost participate in the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ by His sacerdotal character. For Our Lord Jesus Christ is Priest for eternity, Priest according to the Order of Melchisedech, because He is Jesus Christ; because the divinity of the Word of God was infused into the humanity which He assumed. And it is at the moment that He assumed this humanity in the womb of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary that Jesus became Priest.

The grace in which these young priests are going to participate is not the sanctifying grace in which Our Lord Jesus Christ gives us to participate by the grace of baptism; it is the grace of union-that grace of union unique to Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is in this grace that they are going to participate, for it is by His grace of union with the divinity of God, with the divinity of the Word, that Our Lord Jesus Christ became Priest; that Our Lord Jesus Christ is King; that Our Lord Jesus Christ is Judge; that Our Lord Jesus Christ ought to be adored by all men: by His grace of union, sublime grace! grace which no being here below could ever receive-this grace of the divinity itself descending into a humanity which is Our Lord Jesus Christ, anointing Him, after a fashion, like the oil that descends on the head and consecrates him who receives this oil. The humanity of Our Lord Jesus Christ was penetrated by the divinity of the Word of God, and thus He was made Priest. He was made Mediator between God and men.

It is in this very grace, which will place them above the people of God, that these priests are going to participate. They too will be the intermediaries between God and God's people. They will not merely be the representatives of the people of God; they will not be the functionaries of the people of God; they will not merely be 'presidents of the assembly.' They are priests for eternity, marked by this character for eternity, and no one has the right not to respect them; even if they themselves did not respect this character-they have it always in themselves, they will always have it in themselves.

This is what we believe, this is our faith, and this is what constitutes our Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It is the priest who offers the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; and the faithful participate in this offering, with all their heart, with all their soul, but it is not they who offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. As proof, consider that the priest, when he is alone, offers the Holy' Sacrifice of the Mass in the same manner and with the same value as if there were a thousand people around him. His sacrifice has an infinite value: the sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ offered by the priest has an infinite value.

This is what we believe. This is why we think that we cannot accept the new Rite, which is the work of another ideology, or a new ideology. They thought that they would attract the world by accepting the ideas of the world. They thought they would attract to the Church those who do not believe by accepting the ideas of these persons who do not believe, by accepting the ideas of modern man-this modern man who is a Liberal, who is a Liberal, who is a Modernist; who is a man who accepts the plurality of religions, who no longer accepts the social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This I have heard twice from the envoys of the Holy See, who told me that the social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ was no longer possible in our time; that we must accept definitely the pluralism of religions. That is what they told me. That the Encyclical Quas Primas, which is so beautiful, on the social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which was written by Pope Pius XI, would never be written today by the Pope. This is what they said to me-the official envoys of the Holy See.

Well, we are not of this religion. We do not accept this new religion. We are of the religion of all time; we are of the Catholic religion. We are not of this 'universal religion' as they call it today-this is not the Catholic religion any more. We are not of this Liberal, Modernist religion which has its own worship, its own priests, its own faith, its own catechisms, its own Bible, the 'ecumenical Bible'-these things we do not accept. We do not accept the 'ecumenical Bible.' There is no 'ecumenical Bible.' There is only the Bible of God, the Bible of the Holy Ghost, written under the influence of the Holy Ghost. It is the Word of God. We do not have the right to mix it with the words of men. There is no 'ecumenical Bible' which could possibly exist. There is only one Word - the Word of the Holy Ghost. We do not accept the catechisms which no longer uphold our Creed. And so on and so forth.

We cannot accept these things. They are contrary to our Faith. We regret infinitely, it is an immense, immense pain for us, to think that we are in difficulty with Rome because of our faith! How is this possible? It is something that exceeds the imagination, that we should never have been able to imagine, that we should never have been able to believe, especially in our childhood-then when all was uniform, when the whole Church believed in Her general unity, and held the same Faith, the same Sacraments, the same Sacrifice of the Mass, the same catechism. And behold, suddenly all is in division, in chaos.

I said as much to those who came from Rome. I said so: Christians are torn apart in their families, in their homes, among their children; they are torn apart in their hearts by this division in the Church, by this new religion now being taught and practiced. Priests are dying prematurely, torn apart in their hearts and in their souls at the thought that they no longer know what to do: either to submit to obedience and lose, in a way, the faith of their childhood and of their youth, and renounce the promises which they made at the time of their ordination in taking the anti-Modernist oath; or to have the impression of separating themselves from him who is our father, the Pope, from him who is the representative of Saint Peter. What agony for these priests! Many priests have died prematurely of grief. Priests are now hounded from their churches, persecuted, because they say the Mass of all time.

We are in a truly dramatic situation. We have to choose between an appearance, I should say, of disobedience-for the Holy Father cannot ask us to abandon our faith. It is impossible, impossible-the abandonment of our faith. We choose not to abandon our faith, for in that we cannot go wrong. In that which the Catholic Church has taught for two thousand years, the Church cannot be in error. It is absolutely impossible, and that is why  we are attached to this tradition which is expressed in such an admirable and definitive manner, as Pope Saint Pius V said so well, in a definitive manner in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Tomorrow perhaps, in the newspapers, will appear our condemnation. It is quite possible, because of these ordinations today. I myself shall probably be struck by suspension. These young priests will be struck by an irregularity which in theory should prevent them from saying Holy Mass. It is possible. Well, I appeal to Saint Pius V-Saint Pius V, who in his Bull said that, in perpetuity, no priest could incur a censure, whatever it might be, in perpetuity, for saying this Mass. And consequently, this censure, this excommunication, if there was one, these censures, if there are any, are absolutely invalid, contrary to that which Saint Pius V established in perpetuity in his Bull: that never in any age could one inflict a censure on a priest who says this Holy Mass.

Why? Because this Mass is canonized.[size=undefined]3[/size] He canonized it definitively. Now a Pope cannot remove a canonization. The Pope can make a new Rite, but he cannot remove a canonization. He cannot forbid a Mass that is canonized. Thus, if he has canonized a Saint, another Pope cannot come and say that this Saint is no longer canonized. That is not possible. Now this Holy Mass was canonized by Pope Saint Pius V. And that is why we can say it in all tranquility, in all security, and even be certain that, in saying this Mass, we are professing our faith, we are upholding our faith, we are upholding the faith of the Catholic people. This is, indeed, the best manner of upholding it.

And that is why we are going to proceed in a few moments with these ordinations. Certainly we should desire to have a blessing as was given in the past by the Holy See - a benediction came from Rome for the newly-ordained. But we believe that God is here present, that He sees all things, and that He also blesses this ceremony which we are performing; and that one day He will certainly draw from it the fruits which He desires, and will aid us in any case, to maintain our Faith and to serve the Church.

We ask this especially of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary and of Saints Peter and Paul today. Let us ask the Most Blessed Virgin, who is the Mother of the Priesthood, to give these young men the true grace of the priesthood; to give them the Holy Ghost in Whose giving she was intermediary the day of Pentecost.

Let us ask Saint Peter and Saint Paul to maintain in us this faith in Peter. Ah, yes, we believe in Peter, we believe in the Successor of Peter! But as Pope Pius IX says well in his dogmatic constitution, the Pope has received the Holy Ghost, not to make new truths, but to maintain us in the Faith of all time. This is the definition of the Pope made at the time of the First Vatican Council by Pope Pius IX. And that is why we are persuaded that, in maintaining these traditions, we are manifesting our love, our docility, our obedience to the Successor of Peter.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Quote:According to information from Switzerland, Mgr. Lefebvre has actually gone ahead with the ordination of a certain number of priests and deacons. According to the same information, the candidates were not provided with dimissorial letters from their Ordinary or with a valid canonical title.

In that case, the following rules of the Code of Canon Law apply:

1° Mgr. Lefebvre has automatically incurred suspension for a year from the conferring of orders, a suspension reserved to the Apostolic See. The same is true of earlier ordinations which may have taken place under the same conditions, with the aggravating circumstance, in this case, of irregularity linked with repetition of the offense. This suspension is in addition to the prohibition of conferring orders pronounced by the Holy Father and transgressed by Mgr. Lefebvre, but which obviously is still valid and operative.

2° Those who have been ordained are ipso facto (automatically) suspended from the order received, and, if they were to exercise it, they would be in an irregular and criminal situation. The priests who may have been already suspended for a preceding irregular promotion to the diaconate could be punished with severe penalties according to the circumstances, in addition to the fact that they have put them- selves in an irregular situation.

3° The Holy See is examining the special case of the formal disobedience of Mgr. Lefebvre to the instructions of the Holy Father who, by the documents of 12 and 25 June 1976, expressly forbade him to proceed with the ordinations. Even fraternal interventions these last days, started by the Holy Father to get Mgr. Lefebvre to abandon his project, could not prevent the interdiction being violated.

Quote:The Catholics of this diocese, and those who are visiting it, must be warned: no Catholic is authorized to take part in the first Mass (of Father Roch) to be celebrated on 4 July.

Quote:More than 2,000 people assembled in this vast hall despite the interdiction of Mgr. Mamie. ...The congregation manifested great fervor. Hundreds of the faithful received Holy Communion. Men, women, adolescents and young children knelt and prayed with devotion... no Catholic church in Geneva would have been large enough to welcome such a vast number of believers.

Quote:My Dear Monsieur l'Abbé,
My Dear Friends,
My Dear Brothers,

It is not in this Exhibition Hall that your first Mass should have taken place, you being a child of this city. It is in a large and beautiful church of the City of Geneva that you should have celebrated this ceremony so dear to the hearts of all the Catholics of Geneva. But, as Providence has decided otherwise, here you are before the crowd of your friends, of your relatives, of those who want to share your joy and the honor which God has done you of being His priest, a priest forever.

This history of your vocation is the implementation of a plan.

And I shall say what our plan is.

You were born of Protestant parents in this City of Geneva, and in childhood and youth you followed the teaching of the Protestant religion. You were well educated, and you had a profession which gave you all the world can hope for here below. Then, all of a sudden, touched by the grace of God through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, you abruptly decided, under the influence of that grace, to direct: yourself to the true Church, the Catholic Church; and you desired not only to become a Catholic but also to become a priest. I can still see you arriving for the first time at Écône; and I confess that it was not without a certain apprehension that I received you, asking myself if so rapid a passage from Protestantism to the desire of becoming a Catholic priest was not an inspiration with no future. That is the reason why you stayed some time at Écône reflecting more deeply on the desire within you, your aspiration to the priesthood. We all admired your perseverance, your will to reach that goal, despite your age, despite a certain weariness of ecclesiastical studies, of the study of philosophy, theology, Scripture, Canon Law -for you were a scientist. And now, by God's grace, after those years of study at Écône you have received the grace of sacerdotal ordination. It seems to me to be difficult for anyone who has not received that grace to realize what the grace of priesthood is. As I said to you a few days ago at the time of the ordination: You can no longer say that you are a man like other men; that is not true. You are no longer a man like other men: henceforward you are marked with the sacerdotal character which is something ontological, which marks your soul and puts it above the faithful. Yes, whether you are a saint, or, which God forbid, whether you are like priests who are, perhaps, alas, in hell: they still have the sacerdotal character. This sacerdotal character unites you to Our Lord Jesus Christ, to the priesthood of Our Lord Jesus Christ in a very special way, a participation which the faithful cannot have; and that is what permits you, which will permit you in a few moments, to pronounce the words of consecration of Holy Mass, and in a way to make God obey your order, your words. At your words Jesus Christ will come personally, physically, substantially under the species of the bread and wine; He will be present on the altar, and you will adore Him; you will kneel to adore Him, to adore the presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ. That is what the priest is. What an extraordinary reality! We need to be in heaven-and even in heaven shall we understand what the priest is? Is it not St. Augustine who says: "Were I to find myself before a priest and an angel, I should salute the priest first, before the angel"?

So, then, here you are, become a priest. I said that the history of your vocation is a whole plan, it is our plan. That is profoundly true, because we have the Catholic Faith and are not afraid to affirm our faith; and I know that our Protestant friends, who are perhaps here in this assembly, approve of us. They approve of us: they need to feel the presence amongst them of Catholics who are Catholics, and not Catholics who appear to be in full accord with them on points of faith. One does not deceive one's friends; we cannot deceive our Protestant friends. We are Catholics; we affirm our faith in the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we affirm our faith in the divinity of the Holy Catholic Church, we think that Jesus Christ is the sole way, the sole truth, the sole life, and that one cannot be saved outside Our Lord Jesus Christ and consequently outside His Mystical Spouse, the Holy Catholic Church. No doubt, the graces of God are distributed outside the Catholic Church; but those who are saved, even outside the Catholic Church, are saved by the Catholic Church, by Our Lord Jesus Christ, even if they do not know it, even if they are not aware of it, for it is Our Lord Jesus Christ Him- self who has said it: "You can do nothing without me -nihil potestis facere sine me." You cannot come to the Father without going by me, so you cannot come to God without going by me. "When I shall be lifted up from the earth, " says Our Lord Jesus Christ, meaning He will be on His cross, "I shall draw all souls to me." Only Our Lord Jesus Christ, being God, could say such things: no man here below can speak as Our Lord Jesus Christ has spoken, because He alone is the Son of God, He is our God- Tu solus altissimus, tu solus Dominus. He is Our Lord, He is the Most High, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is for that that Ecône remains in being, it is for that that Écône exists, because we believe that what the Catholics have taught, what the Popes have taught, what the Councils have taught for twenty centuries, we cannot possibly abandon. We cannot possibly change our faith: we have our Credo, and we will keep it till we die. We cannot change our Credo, we cannot change the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we cannot change our Sacraments, changing them into human works, purely human, which no longer carry the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is because, in fact, we feel and are convinced that in the last fifteen years something has happened in the Church, something has happened in the Church which has introduced into the highest summits of the Church, and into those who ought to defend our faith, a poison, a virus, which makes them adore the golden calf of this age, adore, in some sense, the errors of this age. To adopt the world, they wish to adopt also the errors of the world; by opening on to the world, they wish also to open themselves to the errors of the world, those errors which say, for example, that all religions are of equal worth. We cannot accept that, those errors which say that the social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ is now an impossibility and should no longer be sought. We do not accept that. Even if the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ is difficult, we want it, we seek it, we say every day in the Our Father: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." If His will were done here below as it is done in heaven-imagine what it would be like if God's will were really done here below as it is done in heaven: it would be paradise on earth! That is the reign of Our Lord which we seek, which we desire with all our strength, even if we never achieve it; and, because God has asked that from us, even if we have to shed our blood for that kingdom we are ready. And that is what the priests are whom we form at Écône, priests who have the Catholic faith, priests such as have always been formed.

Do you not think there is something inconceivable, unbelievable? Take my example, which is like yours. I have now been a priest for fifty years and a bishop for thirty. That means I was a bishop before the Council, a priest before the Council. In my career as priest and bishop I was made responsible for the formation of priests. In the beginning when I went as a missionary to Gabon I was appointed to the seminary of Gabon in Equatorial Africa. I formed priests, one of whom became a bishop. I was recalled to France, and again I was appointed to form seminarians in the seminary of Mortain with the Holy Ghost Fathers. I then went back as bishop of Dakar, in Senegal. I set myself again to form good priests of whom two are bishops and one has just been named Cardinal; and when I was at Mortain in France I formed seminarians, one of whom is now Bishop of Cayenne; so amongst my pupils I have four bishops, one of them a cardinal. I form my seminarians at Écône exactly as I have always formed my seminarians for thirty years; and now, all of a sudden, we are condemned, almost excommunicated, thrown out of the Catholic Church, in disobedience to the Catholic Church, because I have done the same thing that I have done for thirty years. Something has happened in Holy Church. It is not possible! I have changed not one iota in my formation of seminarians, on the contrary I have added a deeper and stronger spirituality, because it seemed to me a certain spiritual formation was lacking in young priests, as, in fact, many have abandoned the priesthood, many, alas, have given the world appalling scandal in their leaving of the priesthood. So it seemed to me necessary to give these priests a deeper , stronger, more courageous spiritual formation to enable them to face difficulties... 1

So, something has happened in the Church: the Church since the Council, already some time before the Council, during the Council, and throughout the reforms, has chosen to take a new direction, to have Her new priests, Her new priesthood, a new type of priest as has been said; She has chosen to have a new sacrifice of the Mass, or rather let us say a new eucharist; She has chosen to have a new catechism, She has chosen to have new seminaries, She has chosen to reform Her religious congregations. And what have we now come to? A few days ago I read in a German paper that in the last few years there are three million fewer practicing Catholics in Germany. Cardinal Marty himself, he who also condemns us, Cardinal Marty, Archbishop of Paris, has said that Mass attendance is down fifty per cent in his diocese since the Council.

Who will say that the fruits of that Council are marvelous fruits of holiness, fervor, and growth of the Catholic Church?

They have chosen to embrace the errors of the world, they have chosen to embrace the errors which come to us from Liberalism, and which come to us -alas, it must be said -from those who lived here four centuries ago, from those reformers who have spread Liberal ideas throughout the world; and those ideas have at last penetrated to the interior of the Church. This monster which is at the interior of the Church must disappear, so that the Church may find Her own nature again, Her own authenticity, Her own identity. That is what we are trying to do, and it is why we continue: we do not want to be destroyers of the Church. If we stop, we shall be certain, convinced, that we are destroying the Church, as those are engaged in destroying Her who are steeped in that false idea. And so we wish to go on with the construction of the Church; and we cannot do better to get the Church built than to make these priests, these young priests -showing always the example of a deep Catholic faith, of an immense charity. I think I can say that it is we who have a true charity towards Protestants, towards all those who do not have our faith. If we believe our Catholic faith, if we are convinced that God has really given His graces to the Catholic Church, we have the desire of sharing our riches with our friends, giving them to our friends. If we are convinced that we have the truth, we should exert ourselves to make it known that that truth can benefit our friends as well. It is a failure in charity to hide one's truth, to hide one's personal riches and not let those profit from them who do not have their own. Why have missions, why set off to distant countries to convert souls, if not because one is certain of having the truth and desirous of sharing the graces received with those who have not yet received them? It is indeed Our Saviour who said: "Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. He that believeth shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be condemned." That is what Our Saviour said. Strengthened by these words, we continue our apostolate, trusting in Providence: it is not possible that this condition of the Church should remain indefinitely.

This morning, in the lessons which Holy Church has us read, we read the story of David and Goliath, and I thought to myself: Should we not be the young David with his sling and a few stones which he found in the stream to strike down Goliath clad in special armour and with a sword capable of splitting his enemy in two? Well, who knows if Écône is not the little stone which will finish by destroying Goliath? Goliath believed in himself; David believed in God and invoked God before attacking Goliath. That is what we are doing. We are full of confidence in God, and we pray God to help us to strike down this giant who believes in himself, who believes in his armour, his muscles, and his weapons. That means the men who believe in themselves, who believe in their science, who believe that by human means we shall succeed in converting the world. As for us, we put our trust in God, and we hope that this Goliath who has penetrated into the interior of the Church will one day be struck down, and that the Church will truly discover Her authenticity, Her truth such as She has always had. Oh, the Church always has it; She does not will to perish; and we hope, precisely, to cooperate with that vitality of the Church and that continuity of the Church. I am convinced that these young priests will continue the Church. That is what we ask them to do, and we are sure that with the grace of God and the help of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Priesthood, they will succeed.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Quote:Monseigneur,

It is the Holy Father who desires me to send you this letter. It is intended above all, on the part of His Holiness and in the name of Jesus Christ, to be a new expression of the most earnest desire, and of the ardent hope felt for a long time, of seeing you finally, after a renewal of your espiscopal and ecclesial conscience, retrace your steps and reestablish that communion which, by your attitude, you have again broken more openly, and in fact on the Feast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul.

I do not wish to touch here on the question of the non-observance of the conditions to which a bishop should keep who is proceeding to the ordination of subjects not his own, non-observance for which the Code of Canon Law itself provides, in canons 2373,2374 and 985 n. 7, appropriate sanctions.

On the other hand, it is incumbent on me, in execution of a duty coming to me from above, to state that, in ignoring the express prohibition by the Holy Father, clearly and lawfully manifested in the documents of 12 and 23 June last, and with fraternal interventions by qualified persons, you have publicly disobeyed the prohibition by proceeding to the ordination of several priests and of some "subdeacons.”

Quote:Also, by this present monition, I implore you to change your attitude, to ask pardon humbly of the Holy Father, and to repair the spiritual damage inflicted on the young men ordained and the scandal caused to the people of God.

I cherish the hope that you will not refuse to take the hand which His Holiness holds out to you yet again.

Quote:If, however, the invitation were to prove vain, and if a proof of recognition of error did not arrive at this Congregation within ten days of your receipt of my letter,2 you must know that, basing itself on a special mandate of the Sovereign Pontiff, it will be the duty of this Congregation to proceed against you by inflicting the necessary penalties, in conformity with canon 2331, para. 1. 3

I beg you to believe that it is with great pain that I have written this letter to a confrere in the episcopate, and I assure you, Monseigneur, of my respectful devotion in Our Lord.

Sebastiano Card. Baggio
Prefect

Quote:The Order of Melchisedech
“Once again we return to the subject of Écône and to the priests ordained there by Mgr. Lefebvre. One knows that they were ordained illicitly, that is to say without the permission and against the wishes of the Pope, but nobody denies that they are true, validly ordained priests; nobody casts doubts on their fervor or on their priestly zeal.

Immediately after ordination, these young men return to their home parishes. In former days, I well remember, such a newly ordained priest was the pride of the entire parish. Everyone flocked to his first Mass, which was celebrated in an atmosphere of joyous devotion and reverence; of gratitude for the precious gift which God had bestowed upon the entire Christian people. Bells pealed, and the sweet smell of incense filled the church. When the Mass was ended, even the old men knelt to receive the blessing of this young, newly ordained priest.

This was the reception the new priests from Écône were given by their relatives and friends; not so by the official clergy, whose behaviour was crude in the extreme. By "official clergy" I mean those now in charge of our churches and cathedrals. We know that discord exists among bishops; was it really necessary to extend the burden of discord to those young men, at the very moment when they had so joyfully given their entire youth to God?

Closed Doors
It was Cardinal Marty who initiated this contemptible ostracism; at last he has shown himself in his true colors. While all types of liturgical abuses are tolerated in our churches; while one church in Paris is used for Moslem services, it is these young priests alone who find the doors of their parish churches closed in their faces; young priests of Jesus Christ, the anointing oils of the ordination still fresh upon their hands; young priests who bring no threat, but solely their new powers of Consecration. Ousted from their parish churches, they are forced to celebrate Mass in secret as during the Reign of Terror. One blushes with shame at the very thought.

However severe the Church may have been during my childhood, showing at times the austere face of Jansenism, never did She show the implacable, cold cruelty which in France today She shows to those of Her sons whose sole aim is to preserve the purity of their Faith and of their vocation. Is this what is called a "Pastoral Church"? Is this the Church of the Good Shepherd, carrying the lamb upon His shoulders? Is it even, as Cardinal Marty claims, " A church which wishes to obey its Lord in the service of contemporary man"? He Who has the words of eternal life for our salvation, is He not also a "present day" man?

Your Eminence, I am going to tell you what horrifies me in you. Christianity has taught us that in the depths of man there exists something impenetrable, something which could well be called his spiritual "heart." This "heart" does not beat to the rhythm of time: it beats secretly to the rhythm of eternal life. When confined within the limits of time, it ceases to beat, as it always does. It is when this "heart-beat" is on the point of stopping that the priest of Jesus Christ brings the spiritual oxygen cylinder. Your Eminence, you are condemning these young priests in the name of "your time " of which, in any case, you know little. Fear, yes, fear the sentence which will be pronounced, not by them, not by me, but by Another Who is above us all in eternity:

But, Your Eminence, the surprising part of your declaration, your trump card, so to speak, was: "Allow me to tell you once again, that in our present difficulties it is not merely a matter of Latin or of the cassock. Far more is at stake: the unity of the Church is threatened, the Eucharistic Mystery in its fullness of truth is threatened." Your Eminence, your words are indeed true, they are indeed frank; they are terribly frank; they are terribly true. They re-affirm what I have been constantly repeating in this chronicle. They are the very words used by Mgr. Lefebvre. So, for once, we are in agreement and the door is now open for discussion.

The Return of the Pharisees
Nothing could be more legitimate, nothing more traditional than to base the unity of the Church on the truth of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the sacrament of that unity , for the Body of Christ is the common heritage of the Church. It is around this Body that the members of the Church gather. The Mystical Body of Christ is sanctified by participating in the Eucharistic Body of Christ, either by receiving Holy Communion or by making a Spriritual Communion. One calls to mind the words found in St.Matthew: "wheresoever the body shall be, there shall the eagles also be gathered together." The Eucharist is not a meal for the unlettered; still less is it a banquet for the intellectual; it is, as it were, the prey of the eagle, a bird which is not given to relinquishing its prey for its shadow. That is the heart of the matter. Who best safeguards the unity of the Church: those who keep the reality of the Eucharistic Body of Christ, or those who lightly relinquish the substance for the shadow?

Catholicism is the religion of the Incarnation. God lifts us up to Himself through the Humanity of Jesus Christ, made present throughout the centuries and throughout the world by outward signs known as sacraments. To betray those rites is to betray Jesus Christ in His reality; it is to endanger the salvation of man for whom these rites were instituted by Jesus Christ Himself, rites which have been carefully fostered by the Church since Her foundation. Herein lies the cause of the turmoil within the Church; the crisis of Écône is but a symptom of the turmoil.

Your Eminence, when, as you say, the unity of the Church and the mystery of the Eucharist in the fullness of its truth are at stake, we find it extremely worrying, not to say distasteful, to find you reducing the affair of Écône to a mere disciplinary matter, to find you donning the cap of a Doctor in Canon Law, when, in fact, the very Church is at stake.

In former days the Pharisees posed as groping defenders of the Law against One Who was both the Consummation and Supreme Justification of the Law."

Quote:The letter which follows (Letter to Paul VI of 22 June 1976) is the third of the same kind addressed to the Holy Father within the last year. It was forwarded to him by the mediation of the Berne Nunciature to which it had been sent on 22 June in answer to the letter of H.E. Mgr. BeneIli which the Nuncio in Beme communicated to me on 17 June (and which was dated 12 June). This letter of 17 June forbade me to proceed with the ordinations on 29 June.

On Sunday 27 June, a special envoy of the Secretariat of State came join me at Flavigny-surozerain in France, when I was preaching the retreat to the ordinands. The letter he brought me from H.E. Mgr. Benelli (of 2S June) made out that it was an answer to the annexed letter.

It confirms the prohibition of the ordinations and the threat of, but it makes no allusion to the possibility of a dialogue even with a mediator.

It thus appears impossible to approach the basic problem, which the agreement of the Conciliar Church, as H. E. Mgr. Benelli himself calls it in his last letter, and the Catholic Church.

Let there be no mistake. It is not a question of a difference between. Mgr. Lefebvre and Pope Paul VI. It is a question of the radical incompatibility between the Catholic Church and the Conciliar Church, the Mass of Paul VI being the symbol and the program of the Conciliar Church.

+ Marcel Lefebvre

Quote:Most Holy Father,

    All access permitting me to reach Your Holiness being forbidden me, may God grant that this letter reaches you to express to you my feelings of profound veneration, and at the same time to state to you, with an urgent prayer, the object of our most ardent desires, which seem, alas!, to be a subject of dispute between the Holy See and numerous faithful Catholics.

Most Holy Father, deign to manifest your will to see the Kingdom of Our Lord Jesus Christ extended in this world,

• by restoring the Public Law of the Church,
  
• by giving the liturgy all its dogmatic value and its hierarchical expression according to the Latin Roman rite consecrated by so many centuries of use,
  
• by restoring the Vulgate to honor,
  
• by giving back to catechisms their true model, that of the Council of Trent.
  

By taking these steps Your Holiness will restore the Catholic priesthood and the Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ  over persons, families, and civil societies.

You will give back their correct concept to falsified ideas which have become the idols of modern man: liberty, equality, fraternity and democracy - like your Predecessors.

Let Your Holiness abandon that ill-omened undertaking of compromise with the ideas of modern man, an undertaking which originates in a secret understanding between high dignitaries in the Church and those of Masonic lodges, since before the Council.

To persevere in that direction is to pursue the destruction of the Church. Your Holiness will easily understand that we cannot collaborate in so calamitous a purpose, which we should do were we to close our seminaries.

May the Holy Ghost deign to give Your Holiness the grace of the gift of fortitude, so that you may show in unequivocal acts that you are truly and authentically the Successor of Peter, proclaiming that there is no salvation except in Jesus Christ and in His Mystical Spouse, the Holy Church, Catholic and Roman.

And may God...

+ Marcel Lefebvre

Quote:Monseigneur,

On 6 July 1976 (Prot. N. 514/76) Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio sent you a formal monition, according to the terms of which you were made aware of the canonical penalties which would be inflicted on you if proof of resipiscence did not reach the Congregation of Bishops within ten days of the receipt of the monition.

Seeing that:

- on the one hand, Mgr. the Apostolic Nuncio in Switzerland attests that you received, on 11 J July ,the formal monition from the Cardinal Prefect of this Congregation, and that you signed a certificate of reception as evidence of the fact ;

- and that, on the other hand, the interval of ten days has passed without the hoped-for proof of resipiscence reaching the offices of this same Congregation;

- in execution of the instructions left by Cardinal Baggio, at present absent from Rome, I have referred to His Holiness.

The Holy Father has informed me that he has received from you a letter dated 17 July .In his eyes, it could not unhappily be considered satisfactory -on the contrary .I may even tell you that he is very distressed by the attitude to him shown in that document.

In consequence the Sovereign Pontiff Paul VI, on 22 July 1976, in conformity with canon 2227, in virtue of which the penalties that can be applied to a bishop are expressly reserved to him, has inflicted on you suspension a divinis provided for in canon 2279, 2, 2°, and has ordered that it take immediate effect.

The undersigned Secretary of the Congregation for Bishops has been commissioned to inform you of this in the present letter.

But, as you may well think, it is with great sorrow that the Holy Father resolved to take this disciplinary measure, because of the scandal caused to the Christian people by your obstinacy, after so many fraternal attempts to turn you from the blind alley in which you are proceeding. His Holiness cherishes the hope that you will again reflect on this, and he begs Our Lord to inspire you with the resolve to re-establish as soon as possible your communion with him.

Given at Rome, in the offices of the Congregation of Bishops, 22 July 1976.

Signed: (illegible)

Quote:"A certain number of personages of the literary and artistic world communicate this letter which they are sending to the Pope on the subject of Mgr. Lefebvre.

                                                                                                                                            8 August 1976
Most Holy Father,

The sanctions that have just been taken against Mgr. Lefebvre and his Seminary at Écône have aroused great emotion in France. Quite apart from traditionalists strictly so-called, it is the majority of French Catholics who feel themselves affected. For years they have been disturbed about the evolution of religion. They say nothing because they are not qualified to speak. They simply withdraw. It is Cardinal Marty himself who recently revealed to us that, between 1962 and 1975, Sunday Mass-going has fallen in the Paris parishes by 54 per cent. Why? Because the faithful no longer recognize their religion in the new liturgy and methods of evangelization.

Nor do they recognize it in the catechism. that is now taught to their children, in the contempt for basic morality, in the heresies professed by accepted theologians, in the political character given to the Gospel.

They welcomed the Council with joy, because they saw in it the announcement of a rejuvenation, a certain suppleness brought to structures and rules which time had little by little hardened, a more fraternal welcome to those seeking truth and justice without yet having the benefit of the great heritage of the Church. But what has happened did not meet their expectation. They have the impression now of being present at the sack of Rome. Was it not yourself, Holy Father, who spoke of the self-destruction of the Church? The fact is that in France that self-destruction is at its height -and we are witnessing it.

About Monseigneur Lefebvre and the Seminary at Écône these rank and file Catholics know very little. But what they have been learning about them little by little from newspapers, radio, and television rather evokes their sympathy. Monseigneur Lefebvre spent the best years of his life in missionary activity .He was Apostolic Delegate in Africa. Your predecessor, Pope John XXIII, who esteemed him greatly and loved him, nominated him to the Central Commission for the preparation of the Council. 4 He formed generations of seminarians. Of the priests from his seminaries, four became bishops, and it was yourself who made one of them, Monseigneur Thiandoum, a Cardinal. How could such a bishop who, all his life, has served the Church in a signal manner, suddenly become a stranger? Is he not rather the bishop whose portrait Vatican II seems to have painted: a bishop strong in faith, turned towards the mission, open to the world to be evangelized? Grieved at the ruin of the French seminaries, and convinced that vocations were not lacking amongst the young, he opened a seminary which, strictly faithful to the norms of Vatican II itself and of the congregation for Catholic Education, offered to those who wished to enter there a life of prayer, study, and discipline. At once candidates flocked in, and the seminary was filled. The great majority of "rank and file Catholics" of whom we speak know all that now.

The unity of the Church is the argument which we see put forward everywhere to justify the severe measures taken against Écône. But, Holy Father, if the little nucleus of Écône is crushed, division will be made much worse! For the division is not between Monseigneur Lefebvre and the other French bishops. It is in the very heart of the hierarchical Church, which lets so many rites, practices and opinions develop with impunity that there is a risk that we shall soon have as many of them as there are priests and communities. It is the swarming of these little inner schisms, it is this proliferation of individual religions, which is the mark of the Church in France-for we are speaking only for France. And there is an explosion of disobedience to Rome, to the Pope, to the Council, in all that concerns the liturgy, the priesthood, the formation of seminarians, and the faith itself. Strange Masses -sometimes ecumenical -and which have nothing to do with the Mass of Paul VI are celebrated with the greatest impunity. Is every "Eucharistic celebration" permitted except the traditional Mass? Can every church be open to Moslems, Israelites, Buddhists, but closed only to priests in soutanes? Is every dialogue to be welcomed with Freemasons, communists, atheists, but condemned with traditionalists? Is the hierarchy in France more prone to imposing a certain new spirit than to announcing and defending the truths of the faith?

There, Holy Father, you have what the basic stratum of the Christian people, whom we are here evoking, end by asking themselves. Every day brings us the echoes-ever stronger , ever more numerous-of their stupefaction and their anguish and that is why we turn to you, for to whom should a Catholic turn if not the Pope, Successor of Peter, Vicar of Jesus Christ? We lay our petition at your feet. What petition? That for love and pardon. It is, rather, a lamentation, a groan, that we hope will rise to you. We are not versed in Canon Law, and we do not doubt that Roman condemnations have juridical foundation. But it is precisely excessive juridicism, legalism, and formalism which seemed to us to have been banished by Vatican II. Could not this serious legal action taken against Monseigneur Lefebvre and his seminary be reconsidered? Could not the love you feel for the Christian people of France prevail over a rigor which, striking the most famous of our defenders of Tradition, will finish in inflicting an incurable wound on that people? Could not charity inspire the restoration of unity in the unique Truth? It seems to us that the traditional Mass and the priesthood of all time could be capable of finding their place in the consolidation and extension of a Church that has never ceased to keep Her essential dogmas and forms, through Her successive adaptations to the vicissitudes of history. What would become of a Church without priests and without Mass?

It is by this act of confidence, Holy Father, that we wish to bear witness to our loyalty to the Roman Pontiff, sure, as we are, of being heard by the Father of all Catholics, holder of the powers given to him from the beginning by the Founder to lead the Church to the end of the world.

Michel Ciry
Michel Droit
Jean Dutourd Remy5
Michel de Saint Pierre
Louis Salleron
Henri Sauguet
Gustave Thibon"

Quote:To our venerated Brother Marcel Lefebvre.

On this Feast of the Assumption of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, We desire to assure you of Our remembrance, accompanied with a special prayer for a positive and speedy solution of the question which concerns your person and your actions with regard to Holy Church.

Our remembrance is expressed in this fraternal and paternal wish:

Quote:...that you would carefully consider, before the Lord and before the Church, in the silence and the responsibility of your conscience as a bishop, the insupportable irregularity of your present position.

Quote:It is not in conformity with truth and with justice. It arrogates to itself the right to declare that Our apostolic ministry deviates from the rule of faith, and to judge as unacceptable the teaching of an Ecumenical Council held with a perfect observance of the ecclesiastical norms: those are extremely serious accusations.

Quote:Your position is not in accordance with the Gospel and in accordance with the faith.

Quote:To persist in this course would do great harm to your consecrated person and to those who follow you, in disobedience to Canon Law. Instead of providing a remedy for the abuses which it is desired to correct, that would add another, of incalculable gravity.

Have the humility, Brother, and the courage, to break the illogical bond which makes you a stranger, hostile to the Church, the Church to which you have been of such service and which you desire still to love and edify. How many souls are expecting from you this example of heroic and simple faithfulness!

Quote:Invoking the Holy Spirit, and trusting to the Most Holy Virgin Mary this hour which is, for you and for Us, decisive and bitter, We pray and We hope.

Paul, PP VI.

Quote:27 August 1976

Most Holy Father,

In the midst of the drama which has caused such disquiet among French Catholics for nearly two months, it is towards Your Holiness that we turn with filial respect to present this plea on behalf of His Grace Monseigneur Lefebvre and the young men who have gone to him to ask him to form them and lead them to the priesthood. Many  voices have already been raised to make known the consternation experienced by the faithful when they heard of the severe sanctions imposed upon the founder of Écône and the priests ordained by him. Many of these expressed themselves with a dignity and a concern for the Church which must be recognized. But these were the voices of lay people. All honor to them. It is as priests and fully cognizant of the responsibilities of our priestly ministry that we wish to address Your Holiness, protesting loudly our fidelity and our submission to the Holy See.

An inquiry conducted by a reputable public opinion poll has made clear the extent of the popular feeling: 28 per cent of French Catholics gave their spontaneous support to Mgr. Lefebvre. Such a number calls for reflection, but in our pastoral experience, as priests in direct contact with the Christian people, it is neither exaggerated nor surprising. It is because of the extent and the depth of the distress that has been revealed that we beg Your Holiness to relent.

Although these lay people, admitting perhaps their understandable ignorance of Canon Law, may have revealed their anguish to Your Holiness with a freedom and frankness which did not diminish by an iota the respect with which they venerate the successor of St. Peter, quite the contrary, we as priests cannot ignore the law of the Church in the matter of ecclesiastical incardination. Although we cannot fail to recognize the very real and very serious questions which the decisions and actions of His Grace Monseigneur Lefebvre pose from the canonical standpoint, neither can we hide from ourselves the fact that this legal standpoint is only one aspect of the problem. What is most essential, and also relative to the very purpose of Canon Law, is the defense of the Faith and its promotion for the growth of the Church and the extension of the Kingdom of God.

This fundamental truth, far from favoring a typically subversive opposition between law and life, between the letter of the law and justice which the law must serve, recalls on the contrary the existence of higher principles and the ultimate purposes in the light of which positive law, which is necessarily limited and relative, must be used in the interests of justice and the vitality of the Church in order to avoid juridicism, that rightly denounced evil. Summum jus, maxima injuria, as the ancients used to say. Justice should always (in the Church) be at the service of Christ's charity and the salvation of souls: Salus animarum, lex suprema.

It is thus appealing to these higher principles, which we know are held most dear to the heart of Your Holiness, that we submit our plea that Your Holiness may find, as you alone have the power, a solution which will save Catholics and the Church from the terrible damage which must inevitably follow the present division if a remedy is not swiftly found.

1. Since it is primarily the law which is in question, what reply can one make to those who voice their deep anxiety at the fact that in the events leading up to the actual drama there is no indication of normal legal procedures having been observed, procedures demanded by the gravity of the affair in question and that of the measures finally taken? To stress a single point among many which have cropped up, one can only be very surprised to learn that the report of the canonical visitation of the Seminary at Écône in November 1974 was never sent to its superior; and this at a time when the Seminary's canonical status had been termed "vague," that is uncanonical, even by voices in authority. And why, one must also ask, was this visitation and its report not taken into consideration when the decision to suppress the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X was taken in May 1975?

We beg Your Holiness to forgive us for returning to these sad events. We believe that it is our duty to recall them, as these events, and others like them, explain the perplexity of the faithful, and the hardening of attitudes, in a manner which would normally be incomprehensible, even among genuine servants of God and of the Church.

2. What other reaction can the faithful and the clergy themselves manifest when, while these events are taking place, they witness the freedom and impunity enjoyed by almost all the "assassins of the faith," as His Eminence Cardinal Danielou designated them? The brutal force of such an expression may shock, but it only reflects the truth of the situation. It is hardly necessary to recall the facts that lie at the basis of this situation. Cardinal Seper and Cardinal Wright have for years been in possession of many dossiers concerning the new catechism which the official commissions of episcopal collegiality impose on the dioceses of France. These obligatory courses contain neither the "truths" nor the "means" necessary for salvation and yet years have passed without any action being taken against the authors or the propagators of this catechesis. They thus pursue their work of destroying the faith under cover of the Bishops' authority which they have usurped.

The situation concerning the liturgy is similar. With the uncertainty of the law, the innovators are no longer few in number but many. A religious was able to list more than one hundred and fifty "Eucharistic Prayers" put officially at the disposal of priests, not to mention the directions given by official bodies for the free composition of the eucharistic liturgy .All these directions have but one point in common, the rejection of Catholic truth -particularly where it concerns the sacramental function of the priest, the Real Presence of Christ, and the fact that the Mass is the true Sacrifice of the Cross. In this area also, most Holy Father, the Vatican Congregations were informed according to the prescribed forms, but the sanctions demanded by these blasphemous violations of divine law have never been taken. The result is that the innovators continue their work with an ever greater audacity. One bishop even tolerates those concelebrations, if such a word can be used, which for months have been taking place involving a priest of his diocese and a Protestant pastor, causing as much scandal to sincere Protestants as to faithful Catholics. Other prelates preside over meetings where the agenda of the JOC (Young Catholic Workers) is a cover-up for action which is more trade-unionist and political than apostolic, and where the official "eucharistic celebration " is an open denial of the Gospel. And what can be said about the establishment of General Absolution as the norm, an innovation which tends in practice to suppress the Sacrament of Penance, and which in many places has already supplanted it?

These facts, Most Holy Father, are no longer exceptional. They are daily occurrences. And it is this which explains why millions of French people, Catholics and even unbelievers, have made manifest their sympathy for the person and the actions of Mgr. Lefebvre. Catholics and large sections of the general public have recognized that he was reacting against the "self-destruction of the Church " which Your Holiness has denounced personally. It is to this reaction that they have said "Yes." It would be tragic to ignore the appeal contained in this massive popular manifestation.

3. As to the very serious basic questions concerning the conciliar and post-conciliar situation taken as a whole and in its reality: a certain manner of referring to the "Conciliar Church " cannot effectively be accepted; nor is it possible to deny the destruction of the Faith, or its large-scale abandonment by the faithful which, in spite of happily large exceptions, is obvious to any attentive observer. We recall the insistence with which, on two occasions in 1974, Your Holiness personally declared the need to "re-examine" what has been done for "the last ten years": firstly in the Bull announcing the Holy Year on 23 May, and secondly a month later in your discourse to the Cardinals on 22 June.

The task is immense, certainly ,but if twenty-eight per cent of Catholics reacted immediately by approving Mgr. Lefebvre whom they recognize quite simply as a pastor who is openly fighting the ills which afflict them all: if forty-eight per cent of these feel that the Church has gone "too far," if fifty-two per cent of practicing Catholics declare they are anxious and troubled by the current evolution of the Church, and if -and it is the Archbishop of Paris himself who has told us this - from 1962 to 1975, fifty-four percent of Catholics in Paris have ceased attending Mass, it shows that there is something seriously wrong, and that appropriate measures should be taken as a matter of urgency.

It is these measures which the Christian people are asking for today, and we believe that it is our duty as priests to confirm this in our small way to Your Holiness. We can bear witness that these statistics, revealed in the daily press, do in fact reflect exactly what our daily parish experience teaches us. Certainly, there are still generous souls whose devotion is often admirable, and their spirit of prayer and sacrifice some- times attains to heroism. It is nevertheless a fact that these are only a very few, while the numbers abandoning the Church are growing; thousands leave the Church and the seminaries continue to empty, although vocations exist. Where can we send them, these young men who ask where they can go to receive a priestly formation? There is not a single seminary in France (and voices more authoritative than ours can confirm this) where the norms of Catholic priestly formation, such as they have recently been formulated once again by the competent authority, are truly observed.

There again, Most Holy Father, it seems that the cause of the malaise is not to be found among persons -you are aware of the difficulties of our Bishops -under the burden of the structures and orientations which have followed the Council. Is not Collegiality, as it is exercised in practice by the commissions in which its authority is invested, one of the prime causes of the present situation in the seminaries of France, as it is in catechetics and the liturgy? Stemming from this, among a very great number of priests, among the young aspiring to the priesthood, and among the faithful, there is a temptation to discouragement and to disgust and to revolt. There is a grave risk of this feeling growing and aggravating the harm already done unless these grievances are dealt with; and to achieve this words will not suffice, adequate measures must be taken at once.

4. What measures? It is not for us to point them out to Your Holiness. It is, however, permitted for us to indicate to your paternal heart two areas where your personal intervention seems to us most urgent.

(a) The first is that of the Écône affair: a revision of the procedure which has resulted in the present drama appears necessary .We think particularly of the young priests, of their debt of gratitude to the Seminary at Écône and to its founder and to the faithful who have supported them. If a certain hardening of attitudes has already become apparent this is a matter not only of immediate gravity but has even more serious implications for the future. The factors which have contributed to this situation must not be forgotten, and we have already cited the principal ones. The Church in France is already short of priests. The salvation of souls demands that a solution conforming to justice and charity be found.

(b) The second area is that of the Liturgy. Numerous questions arise, as much from the point of view of the law as that of practice. Contrary to the view of Father Congar, we do not believe that the books he cites (in La Croix of 20 August 1976) reply to these questions. In fact, they only cite and analyze parts of the dossier. The situation is, in fact, one of almost unrestricted pluralism, as long as the "fruits of creativity" go in the direction of evolution. The absolute rights of creativity and research are proclaimed as the supreme law. This claim has been made and it would be hard to deny that it describes the current situation accurately. In such a situation it must be recognized that there is a permanent provocation even for those who, without denying the validity of the Ordo Missae instituted in 1969, see that in practice no one is concerned but those priests and faithful who, in opposition to the aberrations to which this evolution leads, attached themselves from the introduction of the Novus Ordo to an Ordo with a tradition of more than one thousand years.

In the name of what do they forbid this Ordo which the law promulgated by Your Holiness has not abrogated? We are in the midst of total pluralism and it is precisely because the faithful see that everything is, in fact, tolerated (even what is manifestly unlawful), that they are deeply shocked to find that the only victims of intolerance are those who in the present drama appeal to tradition in liturgical matters.

Now that the unity of Catholic liturgy has been shattered (we are speaking of France where we are the witnesses of unbelievable division), it is not by proscribing the only rite with a thousand years of tradition in the Roman Church that we shall find the means of achieving unity. On the contrary, it is clear that the recognition of the established position of the old Roman rite within the Catholic Church would be an act of conciliation capable of contributing in no small way to calming troubled spirits and healing wounds, not to mention all the other benefits which could be expected to accrue.

It is with full confidence that we send this request to Your Holiness. We well remember the words of your Profession of Faith (Credo of the People of God) of 30 June 1968: "Within the body of this Church the rich variety of liturgical rites and legitimate diversity in theological and spiritual heritage and particular custom, far from detracting from this unity demonstrates it yet more vividly." On 14 December last did not Your Holiness recall again, when addressing the Patriarch Dimitrios, all the benefits which can and do derive from "the respect of a legitimate liturgical diversity, at once spiritual, disciplinary, and theological"? Such words are a great encouragement to us, particularly as they seem to echo the Council which declared that: "Holy Mother Church holds all lawfully recognized rites to be of equal right and dignity: that She wishes to preserve them in the future and foster them in every way" (Liturgy Constitution, No.4). Certainly the Council goes on to say that there is need for "revisions," but when these end up by creating a new rite, are we not conforming to the sovereign law of the Church in this matter by suggesting that the wish manifested by the Council to preserve and favor all manner of rites legitimately recognized, especially the oldest and most venerable, applies in a very particular way to the rite of the Roman Church, the most venerable of them all?

Most Holy Father, as respectful and submissive sons, we place this supplication in your hands, but it is also as priests and pastors conscious of their positions of responsibility which the Church has conferred upon them in the care of souls. Love of Christ's unique Church, so sadly torn apart from within, is the motive which has inspired us. It is the love of Christ and the love of our brothers which Our Saviour Himself has confided to you His Vicar here below. It is the love of Our Lady so gloriously proclaimed by you "Mother of the Church."

Be pleased, Your Holiness, to accept together with our supplication the homage of our most profound and filial respect, and to grant us the grace of your Apostolic Benediction.7

Quote:My Dear Brethren,

Before addressing a few words of exhortation to you, I should like first to dispel some misunderstandings. And to begin with, about this very gathering.

You can see from the simplicity of this ceremony that we made no preparations for a ceremony which would have gathered a crowd like the one in this hall. I thought I should be saying Holy Mass on the 29 August as it had been arranged, before a few hundreds of the faithful of the Lille region, as I have done often in France, Europe, and even America, with no fuss.

Yet all of a sudden this date, 29 August, through press, radio and television, has become a kind of demonstration, resembling, so they say, a challenge. Not at an: this demonstration is not a challenge. This demonstration is what you wanted, dear Catholic brethren, who have come from long distances. Why? To manifest your Catholic faith; to manifest your belief; to manifest your desire to pray and to sanctify yourselves as did your fathers in faith, as did generations and generations before you. That is the real object of this ceremony, during which we desire to pray, pray with all our heart, adore Our Lord Jesus Christ Who in a few moments will come down on this altar and will renew the sacrifice of the Cross which we so much need.

I should like also to dispel another misunderstanding. Here I beg your pardon, but I have to say it: it was not I who called myself head of the traditionalists. You know who did that not long ago in solemn and memorable circumstances in Rome. Mgr. Lefebvre was said to be the head of the traditionalists. I do not want to be head of the traditionalists, nor am I. Why? Because I also am a simple Catholic. A priest and a bishop, certainly; but in the very conditions in which you find yourselves, reacting in the same way to the destruction of the Church, to the destruction of our faith, to the ruins piling up before our eyes.

Having the same reaction, I thought it my duty to form priests, the true priests that the Church needs. I formed those priests in a "Saint Pius X Society," which was recognized by the Church. All I was doing was what all bishops have done for centuries and centuries. That is all I did -something I have been doing for thirty years of my priestly life. It was on that account that I was made a bishop, an Apostolic Delegate in Africa, a member of the central pre-conciliar commission, an assistant at the papal throne. What better proof could I have wanted that Rome considered my work profitable for the Church and for the good of souls? And now when I am doing the same thing, a work exactly like what I have been doing for thirty years, all of a sudden I am suspended a divinis, and perhaps I shall soon be excommunicated, separated from the Church, a renegade, or what have you! How can that be? Is what I have been doing for thirty years liable also to suspension a divinis?

I think, on the contrary, that if then I had been forming seminarians as they are being formed now in the new seminaries I should have been excommunicated. If then I had taught the catechism which is being taught in the schools I should have been called a heretic. And if I had said Mass as it is now said I should have been called suspect of heresy and out of the Church. It is beyond my understanding. It means something has changed in the Church; and it is about that that I wish to speak.

Quote:The union desired by these Liberal Catholics, a union between the Church and the Revolution and subversion is, for the Church, an adulterous union, adulterous. And that adulterous union can produce only bastards. And who are those bastards? They are our rites: the rite of Mass is a bastard rite, the sacraments are bastard sacraments-we no longer know if they are sacraments which give grace or which do not give grace. We no longer know if this Mass gives the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ or if it does not give them. The priests coming out of the seminaries do not themselves know what they are. In Rome it was the Archbishop of Cincinnati who said: "Why are there no more vocations? Because the Church no longer knows what a priest is." How then can She still form priests if She does not know what a priest is? The priests coming out of the seminaries are bastard priests. They do not know what they are. They do not know that they were made to go up to the altar to offer the sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to give Jesus Christ to souls, and to call souls to Jesus Christ. That is what a priest is. Our young men here know that very well. Their whole life is going to be consecrated to that, to love, adore, and serve Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist.

The adulterous union of the Church with the Revolution is consolidated with dialogue. When the Church entered into dialogue it was to convert. Our Lord said: "Go, teach all nations, convert them." But He did not say to hold dialogue with them so as not to convert them, so as to try to put us on the same footing with them.

Error and truth are not compatible. We must see if we have charity towards others, as the Gospel says: he who has charity is one who serves others. But those who have charity should give Our Lord, they should give the riches they possess to others and not just converse with them and enter into dialogue on an equal footing. Truth and error are not on the same footing. That would be putting God and the Devil on the same footing, for the Devil is the father of lies, the father of error.

We must therefore be missionaries.

We must preach the Gospel, convert souls to Jesus Christ and not engage in dialogue with them in an effort to adopt their principles. That is what this bastard Mass and these bastard rites are doing to us, for we wanted dialogue with the Protestants and the Protestants said to us: "We will not have your Mass; we will not have it because it contains things incompatible with our Protestant faith. So change the Mass and we shall be able to pray with you. We can have intercommunion. We can receive your sacraments. You can come to our churches and we can come to yours; then it will be all finished and we shall have unity." We shall have unity in confusion, in bastardy. That we do not want. The Church has never wanted it. We love the Protestants; we want to convert them. But it is not loving them to let them think they have the same religion as the Catholic religion.

Quote:There will be no peace on this earth except in the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The nations are at war -every day we have page after page of the newspapers about it, we have it on radio and television. Now because of a change of Prime Minister they are asking what can be done to improve the economic situation, what will strengthen the currency, what will bring prosperity to industry, and so on. All the papers in the world are full of it. But even from an economic point of view Our Lord Jesus Christ must reign, because the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ is the reign of the principles of love, indeed of the commandments of God which give society its balance, which make justice and peace reign in society .It is only when society has order, justice, and peace that the economy can prevail and revive. That is easily seen. Take the Argentine Republic as an example. What state was it in just two or three months ago? Complete anarchy, brigands killing right and left, industries totally ruined, factory owners seized and held to ransom, and so on. An incredible revolution, and that in a country so beautiful, so balanced, and so congenial as the Argentine Republic, a Republic which could be extraordinarily prosperous and enormously wealthy. Now there is a government of principle, with authority, which brings back order into life and stops the brigands murdering; and lo and behold! the economy is reviving, workers have employment, and they can return to their homes knowing that no one is going to knock them on the head because they will not strike when they do not wish to strike. That is the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ that we want; and we profess our faith, saying that Our Lord Jesus Christ is God.

Quote:I have just been talking to you about principles, I might say political principles, which one may have, the political principles of the Church. She has principles, political principles, principles for society, for She considers that society is created by God, like the family. The family has its laws: there are father, mother, and child; and each has a law and a position in the family. Similarly in civil society. The Church considers that it is a creature of God, and that this creature of God also has its laws so that it can develop normally and give all its members the fullest possibility for their own development. Of course we want governments to observe these laws. I took that example, but I might have taken another, for, as you know, I do not write my speeches -a pity, perhaps -but I do not think about them well in advance. So, trying to give an example of Christian order, of the notion people have of Christian order which brings things back to peace and justice, with the hierarchy which is necessary in a society, I quoted this example because it is recent and known to everybody, and also because the situation was really frightful, the Argentine being in a state of anarchy, with assassinations and abductions-a situation on the brink of the abyss, on the verge of  total anarchy. A government then took over, but I think that, given the ideas of some of these men (I know some of the Argentinian bishops and I was there myself not long ago), I think that these men who took over the government did so in a Christian spirit. That they are not governing perfectly, that they exaggerate, that not everything is perfect, I do not doubt for a moment (I do not think that any government in the world has ever been perfect) ; but they did, I think, return to principles of justice, and that is why I gave that example. I said: you see that when Christian principles are restored a society is rediscovered which can live, which is livable, in which people can live, where they need not always be asking themselves if they are going to be assassinated at the street corner, or be robbed, or have a bomb in their garden, and so on. All I wanted to do was give an example: but that does not mean I am a supporter of the government of the Argentine or of the government of Chile. I might have used Chile as an example. I could perhaps have quoted governments which were in total anarchy and which then re-established order. Such an order might be tyrannical, and then it is a different matter: we are not talking of introducing slavery .I must say that I did not use that example so as to support the government in the Argentine or to play politics. I do not play politics.

Quote:General Videla, brought to power by a coup d'etat, has managed at the last moment to save the economic situation of the country .With an 800 per cent inflation during the last twelve months of Isabel Peron's presidency, with no means of paying off its debts abroad, the Argentine was on the verge of bankruptcy. By freezing prices and freezing salaries, inflation has been brought down by at least 3 per cent a month.... The Argentine can resume its development on a solid foundation.

Quote:The Argentinian armed forces refused for a long time to act, and on 24 March 1976, when they made their decision, the chaos had reached such a pitch that they could no longer delay. I remind you, moreover, of what I wrote to you on 17 March, a week before their seizure of power: "The armed forces are going to have to make draconian decisions whether they like it or not.'

Quote:We are against no one. We are not commandos. We wish nobody harm.

All we want is to be allowed to profess our faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ.

So, for that reason, we are driven from our churches. The poor priests are driven out for saying the Old Mass by which all our saints were sanctified: Saint Jeanne d'Arc, the holy Cure of Ars, the little Therese of the Child Jesus were sanctified by this Mass; and now priests are driven brutally, cruelly, from their parishes because they say the Mass which has sanctified saints for centuries. It is crazy. I would almost say it is a story of madmen. I ask myself if I am dreaming. How can this Mass have become some kind of horror for our bishops and for those who should preserve our faith? But we will keep the Mass of Saint Pius V because the Mass of Saint Pius V is the Mass of twenty centuries. It is the Mass of all time, not just the Mass of Saint Pius V; and it represents our faith, it is a bulwark of our faith, and we need that bulwark.

We shall be told that we are making it a question of Latin and soutanes. Obviously it is easy that way to discredit those you disagree with. But Latin has its importance; and when I was in Africa it was marvellous to see those crowds of Africans of different languages -we sometimes had five or six different tribes who did not understand one another - who could assist at Mass in our churches and sing the Latin chants with extraordinary fervor. Go and see them now : they quarrel in the churches because Mass is being said in a language other than theirs, so they are displeased and they want a Mass in their own language. The confusion is total, where before there was perfect unity. That is just one example, You have just heard the epistle and gospel read in French -I see no difficulty in that; and if more prayers in French were added, to be said all together, I still see no difficulty. But it still seems to me that the body of the Mass, which runs from the offertory to the priest's Communion, should remain in a unique language so that all men of all nations can assist together at Mass and can feel unity in that unity of faith, in that unity of prayer. So we ask, indeed we address an appeal to the bishops and to Rome: will they, please, take into consideration our desire to pray as our ancestors did, to keep the Catholic faith, our desire to adore Our Lord Jesus Christ and to want His reign. That is what I said in my last letter to the Holy Father-and I thought it really was the last, because I did not think the Holy Father would have written to me again.

Quote:His Excellency Mgr. Marcel Lefebvre came yesterday to Castelgandolfo to ask the Holy Father for an audience.

He was received this morning at 10:30.

His Holiness, after pointing out that the problems raised had been and were always followed by the Pope with the keenest and most constant attention, invited him, in words especially and intensely paternal, to reflect on the situation he had created, a situation gravely damaging to the Church, as well as on his personal responsibility with regard to group of the faithful who follow him and to the whole ecclesial community, and before God.

Quote:PART I
I tell you quite sincerely that this meeting with the Pope was for me altogether unexpected. Certainly I had been wanting it for several years. I had asked to meet the Holy Father, to talk to him about my seminary, my work - I might say to give him joy because I was still able, in spite of the circumstances, to manage to form some priests, to help the Church in the formation of priests. But I never succeeded. I was always told that the Pope had not time to receive me. Then, little by little, when the seminary was penalized, the difficulties were obviously greater, with the result that I was never able to get through the bronze door. But after those events (the suppression of the seminary and the suppression of the Fraternity) the condition set for my seeing the Holy Father was that I submit to the Council, the post-conciliar reforms, and the post-conciliar orientations desired by the Holy Father - that is, practically, the closure of my seminary. That I did not accept. I could not accept the closure of my seminary or the cessation of ordinations in the seminary, because I consider that I am doing constructive work, I am building the Church, not pulling it down, though the demolition is going on all around me. I consider that I cannot in conscience collaborate in the destruction of the Church. That brought us to a complete deadlock: on the one side the Holy See was imposing conditions which meant the closure of the seminary, and on the other side I would not have the seminary closed. It seemed, therefore, that dialogue was impossible. Then, as you know, that penalty of suspension a divinis was imposed, which is very serious in the Church, especially for a bishop: it means that I am forbidden to perform acts corresponding to my episcopal ordination - no Mass, no sacraments, no administering of sacraments. Very serious. That shocked public opinion, and it so happened that a current of opinion was formed in my favor. It was not I who sought it: it was the Holy See itself which gave tremendous publicity to the suspension and to the seminary. You represent all the means for the diffusion of news, and it was your job to give people what they wanted by speaking of this event. That set moving a wave of opinion which, to say the least, was unexpected by the Vatican.

So the Vatican found itself in a rather delicate and tiresome situation in face of public opinion, and that, I think or least imagine, is why the Pope wanted to see me after all, but not officially through the usual channels: I did not see Mgr. Martin, who usually arranges audiences, nor did I meet Cardinal Villot - I met no one. It so happened that I was at Besançon preparing for Mass when I was told: "There is a priest come from Rome who would like to see you after Mass. It is very urgent and very important." I said: "I'll see him after Mass."

So after Mass we retired to a corner of the room where we happened to be, and this priest, Don Domenico La Bellarte I think - I did not know him, having never in my life set eyes on him - said to me: "The Archbishop of Chieti, my superior, saw the Holy Father recently, and the Holy Father expressed a desire to see you." I said to him: "Look, I've been wanting to see the Holy Father for five years. They always impose conditions, and they will impose the same conditions again. I do not see why I should go to Rome now." He insisted, saying: "There has been a change. Something has changed at Rome in the situation with regard to you." "Very well. If you can assure me that the Archbishop of Chieti will accompany me to the Holy Father, I have never refused to see the Holy Father and I am willing to go."

I then promised him that I would go to Rome as soon as possible. I had the ceremony at Fanjeaux, so I went to Fanjeaux, so I went to Fanjeux and afterwards went direct by car to Rome. I tried to get in touch with that priest, and I met him in Rome, where he said to me: "You had better, all the same, write a bit of a letter to the Holy Father which I can give to Mgr. Macchi, his secretary, and then you will be able to see the Holy Father." I said: "But what sort of letter? There is no question of my asking pardon or saying that I accept beforehand whatever will be imposed on me. I will not accept that." Then he said to me: "Write anything. Put something on paper and I'll take it at once to Castelgandolfo." I wrote expressing my deep respect for the person of the Holy Father and saying that if there were, in the expressions I had used in speeches and writings, anything displeasing to the Holy Father, I regretted them; that I was always ready to be received, and hope to be received, by the Holy Father. I signed the letter, and that was that.1 The priest did not even read the little note I had written but put it in an envelope. I addressed the envelope to the Holy Father and we set off for Castel-gandolfo. He went in to the palace. We remained a while outside. He went to see Mgr. Macchi, who said to him: "I cannot give you an answer at once. I will let you know about seven this evening." That was last Thursday evening. And in fact at seven I got a telephone call in my house at Albano. I was told: "You will have an audience with the Holy Father tomorrow at ten-thirty."


PART II

So, the next day, Saturday, at quarter past ten, I went to Castelgandolfo, and there I really believe the Holy Angels had driven out the Vatican employees because I had come back there: there were two Swiss Guards at the entrance, and after that I encountered only Mgr X (not Mgr. Y: their names are very alike). Mgr. X, the Canadian, conducted me to the lift. Only the lift man was there, that is all, and I went up. The three of us went up to the first floor, and there, accompanied by Mgr. X, I went through all the rooms: there are at least seven or eight before you come to the Holy Father's office. Not a living soul! Usually - I have often been to private audience in the days of Pope Pius XI, Pope Pius XII, Pope John XXIII, and even Pope Paul VI - there is always at least one Swiss Guard, always a gendarme, always several people: a private chamberlain, a monseigneur who is present if only to keep an eye on things and prevent incidents. But the rooms were empty - nothing, absolutely nothing. So I went to the Holy Father's office, where I found the Holy Father with Mgr. Benelli at his side. I greeted the Holy Father and I greeted Mgr. Benelli. We seated ourselves at once, and the audience began.

The Holy Father was lively enough at the beginning - one could almost call it somewhat violent in a way: one could feel that he was deeply wounded and rather provoked by what we are doing. He said to me:

"You condemn me, you condemn me. I am a Modernist. I am a Protestant. It cannot be allowed, you are doing an evil work, you ought not to continue, you are causing scandal in the Church, etc..." with nervous irritability.

I kept quiet, you may be sure. After that he said to me:

"Well, speak now, speak. What have you to say?"

I said to him:

"Holy Father, I come here, but not as the head of the traditionalists. You have said I am head of the traditionalists. I deny flatly that I am head of the traditionalists. I am only a Catholic, a priest, a bishop, among millions of Catholics, thousands of priests and other bishops who are torn and pulled apart in conscience, in mind, in heart. On the one side we desire to submit to you entirely, to follow you in everything, to have no reserves about your person, and on the other side we are aware that the lines taken by the Holy See since the Council, and the whole new orientation, turn us away from your predecessors. What then are we to do? We find ourselves obliged either to attach ourselves to your predecessors or to attach ourselves to your person and separate ourselves from your predecessors. For Catholics to be torn like that is unheard of, unbelievable. And it is not I who have provoked that, it is not a movement made by me, it is a feeling that comes from the hearts of the faithful, millions of the faithful whom I do not know. I have no idea how many there are. They are all over the world, everywhere. Everybody is uneasy about this upset that has happened in the Church in the last ten years, about the ruins accumulating in the Church. Here are examples: there is a basic attitude in people, an interior attitude which makes them now unchangeable. They will not change because they have chosen: they have made their choice for Tradition and for those who maintain Tradition. There are examples like that of the religious Sisters I saw two days ago, good religious who wish to keep their religious life, who teach children as their parents want them to be taught - many parents bring their children to them because they will receive a Catholic education from these religious. So, here are religious keeping their religious habit; and just because they wish to preserve the old prayer and to keep the old catechism they are excommunicated. The Superior General has been dismissed. The bishop has been five times, requiring them to abandon their religious habit because they have been reduced to the lay state. People who see that do not understand. And, side by side with that, nuns who discard their habit, return to all the worldly vanities, no longer have a religious rule, no longer pray - they are officially approved by bishops, and no one says a word against them! The man in the street, the poor Christian, seeing these things cannot accept them. That is impossible. Then it is the same for priests. Good priests who say their Mass well, who pray, who are to be found in the confessional, who preach true doctrine, who visit the sick, who wear their soutane, who are true priests loved by their people because they keep the Old Mass, the Mass of their ordination, who keep the old catechism, are thrown on the street as worthless creatures, all but excommunicated. And then priests go into factories, never dress as priests so that there is no knowing what they are, preach revolution - and they are officially accepted, and nobody says anything to them. As for me, I am in the same case. I try to make priests, good priests as they were made formerly; there are many vocations, the young men are admired by the people who see them in trains, on the underground; they are greeted, admired, congratulated on their dress and bearing; and I am suspended a divinis! And the bishops who have no more seminarians, no young priests, nothing, and whose seminaries no longer make good priests - nothing is said to them! You understand; the poor average Christian sees it clearly. He has chosen and he will not budge. He has reached his limit. It is impossible."

"That is not true. You do not train good priests," he said to me, "because you make them take an oath against the Pope."

"What!" I answered. "An oath against the Pope? I who, on the contrary, try to give them respect for the Pope, respect for the successor of Peter! On the contrary, we pray for the Holy Father, and you will never be able to show me this oath which they take against the Pope. Can you give me a copy of it?"

And now, officially, the Vatican spokesmen have published in today's paper, where you can read it, the Vatican denial, saying that it is not true, that the Holy Father did not say that to me: the Holy Father did not say to me that I made my seminarians and young priests take an oath against the Pope. But how could I have invented that? How invent anything of the kind? It is unthinkable. But now they deny it: the Holy Father did not say it. It is incredible. And obviously I have no tape recording. I did not write out the whole conversation, so I cannot prove the contrary materially. But my very reaction! I cannot forget how I reacted to that assertion by the Holy Father. I can still see myself gesturing and saying: "But how, Holy Father, can you possibly say such a thing! Can you show me a copy of the oath?" And now they are saying it is not true. It is extraordinary!

Then the Holy Father said to me, further:

"It is true, is it not, that you condemn me?"

I had the strong impression that it all came back rather to his person, that he was personally hurt:

"You condemn me, so what ought I to do? Must I hand in my resignation and let you take my place?"

"Oh!" I put my head in my hands.

"Holy Father, do not say such things. No, no, no, no!" I then said:

"Holy Father, let me continue. You have the solution of the problem in your hands. You need say only one word to the bishops: receive fraternally, with understanding and charity all those groups of traditionalists, all those who wish to keep the prayer of former days, the sacraments as before, the catechism as before. Receive them, give them places of worship, settle with them so that they can pray and remain in relation with you, in intimate relation with their bishops. You need say only one word to the bishops and everything will return to order and at that moment we shall have no more problems. Things will return to order. As for the seminary, I myself shall have no difficulty in going to the bishops and asking them to implant my priests in their dioceses: things will be done normally. I myself am very willing to renew relations with a commission you could name from the Congregation of Religious to come to the seminary. But clearly we shall keep and wish to continue the practice of Tradition. We should be allowed to maintain that practice. But I want to return to normal and official relations with the Holy See and with the Congregations. Beyond that I want nothing.”

He then said to me:

“I must reflect, I must pray, I must consult the Consistory, I must consult the Curia. I cannot give you an answer. We shall see.”

After that he said to me: "We will pray together."

I said: "Most willingly, Holy Father."

We then said the Pater Noster, Veni Creator, and an Ave Maria, and he then led me back very pleasantly, but with difficulty - his walk was painful, and he dragged his legs a little. In the room to the side he waited until Domenico came for me; and he had a small medal given to Don Domenico. We then left. Mgr. Benelli did not open his mouth; he did nothing but write all the time, like a secretary. He did not bother me at all. It was as though Mgr. Benelli were not present. I think it did not trouble the Holy Father, just as it did not trouble me, because he did not open his mouth, and gave no sign. I then said twice again that he had the solution of the problem in his hands. He then showed his satisfaction at having had this interview, this dialogue. I said I was always at his disposal. We then left.

Since then, they are now relating what they like in the newspapers, the most fantastic inventions - that I accepted everything, that I made a complete submission; then they said it was all to the contrary - that I had accepted nothing and conceded nothing. Now they are telling me, in effect, that I lied, that I am inventing things in the conversation I had with the Holy Father. My impression is that they are so furious that this audience took place unforeseen, without going through the usual channels, that they are trying in every way to discredit it, and to discredit me as well. Clearly they are afraid that this audience puts me back in favor with many people, who are saying: Now, if Monseigneur has seen the Holy Father, there are no more problems: he is back again with the Holy Father. In fact, we have never been against the Holy Father and have always wanted to be with the Holy Father.

Moreover, I have just written to him again because Cardinal Thiandoum was so insistent on that2 so that he could have a short note from me to take to the Holy Father. I said to him: "Good. I am ready to write a short letter to the Holy Father (though I am beginning to think that this correspondence is endless), 1 want to thank the Holy Father for granting me this audience." I did that, and thanked the Holy Father..

The Holy Father had said in the course of the conversation: "Well, at least we have a point in common: we both want to stop all these abuses that exist at present in the Church, so as to give back to the Church Her true countenance, etc...

I answered: "Yes, absolutely."

So I put in my letter that I was ready to collaborate with him, he having said in the course of the audience that at least we had a point in common, to give the Church back Her true countenance and to suppress all the abuses in the Church. In that, I was quite ready to collaborate, and indeed under his authority. I said nothing, I think, which would promise too much, as giving back Her true countenance to the Church is what we are doing.

When I also said to him that I was, in fact, basing myself on “pluralism,” I said:

“But, after all, with the present pluralism how would it be to let those also who want to keep Tradition be on the same footing as the others? It is the least that could be granted us." I said: "1 do not know, Holy Father, if you know that there are twenty-three official eucharistic prayers in France.”

He raised his arms to heaven and said: "Many more, Monseigneur, many more!"

So then I said to him:

“But, if there are many more, if, even so, you add another, I do not see how that can harm the Church. Is it a mortal sin to keep up Tradition and do what the Church has always done?”

You see, the Pope seems well-informed.

So now I think we must pray and hold firm. There may be some among you who were shocked at the suspension a divinis and, I should say, by my rejection of the suspension a divinis. Of course. I understand. But that rejection is part, and I say it should be seen as part, of our refusal to accept the judgment that came to us from Rome. All that is the same thing. It is part of the same context; it is all linked together. It that not so? So I do not see why I should accept this suspension since I did not accept the prohibition of ordaining, nor accept the closing of the seminary and the closing and destruction of the Fraternity. That would mean that I should have accepted from the moment of the first sentence, of the first condemnation: I should have said Yes, we are condemned, we close the seminary and end the Fraternity .Why did I not accept that? Because it was done illegally, because it is based on no proof and no judgment. I do not know if you have had occasion to read what Cardinal Garrone himself said in an interview : our meeting with Mgr. Lefebvre in Rome with the three Cardinals was not a tribunal. He said that openly. It is what I have always said myself. It was a conversation. I have never found myself before a tribunal. The Visitation was not a tribunal; it was an enquiry, not a judgment. So there was no tribunal, no judgment, nothing: I have been condemned like that without being able to defend myself, with no monition, nothing in writing, nothing. No! It is not possible. All the same, justice exists. So I rejected that condemnation, because it was illegal and because I was not able to make my appeal. The way that happened is absolutely inadmissible. We have been given no valid reasons for our condemnation. Once that sentence has been rejected, there is no valid reason for not rejecting the others, for the others always rest on that one. Why have I been forbidden to ordain? Because the Fraternity was "suppressed" and the seminary should have been closed. So I have no right to ordain. I reject that because it is based on a judgment that is false. Why am I suspended a divinis? Because I ordained when I had been forbidden to do so. But I do not accept that sentence about ordinations precisely because I do not accept the judgment that was pronounced. It is a chain. I do not accept the chain because I do not accept the first link on which the entire condemnation was built. I cannot accept it.

Moreover, the Holy Father himself did not speak to me of the suspension, he did not speak to me of the seminary , of anything. On that subject, nothing, nothing at all.

That is the situation as it is at present. I think that for you, clearly - and I understand - it is a drama, as it is for me; and I think we desire from our heart that normal relations will be resumed with the Holy See. But who was it who broke off normal relations? They were broken at the Council. It was at the Council that normal relations with the Church were broken, it was at the Council that the Church, separating Herself from Tradition, departing from Tradition, took up an abnormal attitude to Tradition. It is that which we cannot accept; we cannot accept a separation from Tradition.

As I said to the Holy Father: "In so far as you deviate from your predecessors, we can no longer follow you." That is plain. It is not we who deviate from his predecessors.

When I said to him: "But look again at the texts on religious liberty , two texts which formally contradict one another, word for word (important dogmatic texts, that of Gregory XVI and that of Pius IX, Quanta Cura, and then that on religious liberty, they contradict one another, word for word); which are we to choose?"

He answered: "Oh, leave those things. Let us not start discussions.” 3

Yes, but the whole problem is there. In so far as the new Church separates itself from the old Church we cannot follow it. That is the position, and that is why we maintain Tradition, we keep firmly to Tradition; and I am sure we are being of immense service to the Church. I should say that the Econe seminary is basic to the battle we are waging. It is the Church’s battle, and it is with that idea that we should position ourselves.

Unhappily, I must say that this conversation with the Holy Father has left me with a painful impression. I had precisely the impression that what he was defending was himself personally:

"You are against me!"

"I am not against you, I am against what separates us from Tradition; I am against what draws us towards Protestantism, towards Modernism.”

I had the impression that he was considering the whole problem as personal. It is not the person, it is not Mgr. Montini: we regard him as the successor of Peter, and as successor of Peter he should pass on to us the faith of his predecessors. In so far as he does not pass on the faith of his predecessors he is no longer the successor of Peter. He becomes a person separated from his duty, denying his duty, not doing his duty. There is nothing I can do: I am not to blame. When Fesquet of Le Monde-he was there in the second row two or three days ago-said: "But in fact you are alone. Alone against all the bishops. What on earth can you do? What sense is there in combat of that sort?"

I answered: "What do you mean? I am not alone, I have the whole of Tradition with me. Besides, even here I am not alone. I know that many bishops privately think as we do. We have many priests with us, and there are the seminary and the seminarians and all those who come our way."

And Truth is not made by numbers: numbers do not make Truth. Even if I am alone, and even if all my seminarians leave me, even if I am abandoned by the whole of public opinion, it is all the same to me. I am attached to my catechism, attached to my Credo, attached to the Tradition which sanctified all the saints in heaven. I am not concerned about others: they do as they wish; but I want to save my soul. Public opinion I know too well: it was public opinion which condemned Our Lord after acclaiming Him a few days before. First, Palm Sunday: then, Good Friday. We know that. Public opinion is not to be trusted at all. Today it is for me, tomorrow it is against me. What matters is fidelity to our faith. We should have that conviction and stay calm.

When the Holy Father said to me:

“But, after all, do you not feel within you something which reproaches you for what you are doing? You are making a huge scandal in the Church. Is there not something which reproaches you?"

I replied: "No, Holy Father, not at all!"

He answered: "Oh! Then you are irresponsible."

“Perhaps," I said. I could not say otherwise. If I had anything to reproach myself with I should stop at once.

Pray well during your retreat, because I think things are going to happen - they have been happening for a long time, but the further we go the more often we come to critical point. All the same, the fact that God has allowed me to meet the Holy Father, to tell him what we think, and to leave the whole responsibility for the situation, now, in his hand - that is something willed by God. It remains for us to pray, begging the Holy Ghost to enlighten him and to give him courage to act in a manner which could clearly be very hard for him. I see no other solution. God has all the solutions. I could die tomorrow. We should pray also for the faithful who maintain Tradition that they may always preserve a strong, firm attitude, but not an attitude of contempt for persons, insult to persons, insult to bishops. We have the advantage of possessing the Truth-we are not at fault - just as the Church has the superiority over error of having the Truth: that superiority is Hers.

Because we have the conviction that we are upholding the Truth, Truth must plot our course, Truth must convince. It is not our person, it is not outbursts of anger, or insult of people, which will give added weight to Truth. On the contrary, that could cast doubt upon our possession of the Truth. Becoming angry and insulting shows that we do not completely trust in the weight of Truth, which is the weight of God Himself. It is in God that we trust, in Truth which is God, which is Our Lord Jesus Christ. What can be surer than that? Nothing. And little by little that Truth makes, and will make, its way. It must. So let us resolve that in our expressions and attitudes we shall not despise and insult people, but be firm against error. Absolute firmness, without compromise, without relaxation, because we are with Our Lord-it is a question of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The honor of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the glory of the Blessed Trinity is at stake-not the infinite glory in heaven, but the glory here below on earth. It is Truth; and we defend it at any cost, whatever happens.

I thank you all for praying for these intentions, as I believe you did during the vacation, and I thank all those who had the kindness to write me a few words during the vacation to say and show their sympathy and affection during these times, which are always something of a trial. God certainly helps us in this fight: that is absolutely certain. But, all the same, it is trying. It would be such happiness to work with all those who have responsibility in the Church and who ought to work with us for the kingdom of Our Lord.

We remain united. Make a good retreat so that you will be able to undertake a profitable year of studies.

Quote:To the question put to me by a journalist I am authorized to answer: It is not true that Mgr. Lefebvre signed a document of submission before being received by the Holy Father. Before being received, he himself brought to Castelgandolfo a short letter in which he asked the Holy Father for an audience, in courteous terms which gave room for hope of a possible and always desirable submission on his part.

To another journalist who asked if the Abbe La Bellarte or other persons had been instrumental, in agreement with the Holy See, in preparing this audience, I am authorized to answer:
Neither the Abbe La Bellarte nor anyone else was given such a mission. There was no previous understanding, either direct or indirect. Mgr. Lefebvre presented himself unexpectedly at the papal residence in Castelgandolfo and asked for an audience by the letter mentioned above. The Holy Father decided to receive him, above all because, though he was suspended a divinis, he was still a bishop who had come in person to the house of the common Father, in very special circumstances, and also because, as we have already said, his request for an audience was so formulated as to allow the Holy Father hope of a repentance.

I take this opportunity to put you on your guard against news-stories which, in different countries, are unjustifiable embellishments of this sad episode.4

Quote:Most Holy Father:

Taking advantage of His Eminence Cardinal Thiandoum's meeting with Your Holiness, I am anxious to thank you for your kindness in granting me an interview at Castelgandolfo.

As Your Holiness said: we are united by a point in common-the ardent desire to see the end of all the abuses which are disfiguring the Church.

How I long to collaborate in that salutary work with Your Holiness and under your authority, so that the Church may recover her true countenance.

Hoping that the interview Your Holiness granted me will bear fruit pleasing to God and salutary for souls, I beg you to accept my respectful and filial wishes in Christ and Mary.

+ Marcel Lefebvre

Quote:Monsieur le President,

I have read with great interest the extract from your last letter to His Eminence the Cardinal Secretary of State, with the three requests you submitted to him. I congratulate you on this initiative, and I wish with all my heart that it will be received in Rome with understanding.

The fact is, it was necessary for me to denounce the new rites as “bastard” rites and to say that the new rite of Mass is “the symbol of a new faith, a Modernist faith”; and one of the chief reasons for that was the rigor of the attempt to proscribe the old rites. That rigor can be explained only on the hypothesis that the purpose was to drive out of the Church, along with those venerable rites, the doctrines of which they are the expression.

If the proscription of our old rites were lifted, that could be taken as a sign that Rome does not wish to impose on us, by means of a completely altered lex orandi, a new law of faith. And if, thenceforward, those venerable rites recovered, in the lived liturgy of the Church, the rights and honors due to them, that would be striking evidence that the Church called “Conciliar” allows us to profess the same faith, and to draw from the same sacramental sources, as the Church of all time.

True, the renewed rites present problems even if they are proposed to the Church as merely experimental. Yet, however serious these problems, we should be able to discuss them calmly with the competent authorities, without finding ourselves accused at every turn of failing in authentic loyalty to the Church.

As to the work of priestly formation which I undertake in my seminaries, it is centered wholly, as you know, on the inexhaustible mystery of the Holy Mass. That is why, for the celebration of Mass, we keep the old Missal which seems to me to enable both the celebrant and the congregation to have a more intense participation in that mystery .The same would be true for the other sacramental rites: I am sure that in their old form they give expression, better than in the new forms, to the riches of their dogmatic content, and that they therefore have a greater evangelical and pastoral effectiveness.

For the universal Church I hope, as you do, for the peaceful co-existence of the pre-and post-conciliar rites. Priests and people could then choose to which "rite-family" they would belong. Time would then let us know God's judgment on their comparative values for truth and for their salutary effect on the Catholic Church and on the whole of Christendom.

With my respectful and cordially devoted wishes in Christ and Mary.

+ Marcel Lefebvre

Quote:Mgr. Lefebvre has said during his audience with the Holy Father he learned that he was being falsely accused of demanding from his seminarians an oath against the Pope. Yesterday evening; speaking on “Antenne 2" of French Television, he said the same thing in even greater detail, asserting that the Holy Father said to him: "You require from your seminarians an oath against the Pope." According to the ex-Archbishop of Tulle this would prove that the Pope is ill-informed, and even roused against by calumnies, "no doubt to stop him receiving him.” Mgr. Lefebvre, according to the story, challenged the Pope to show him the text of the oath.

Well. I can assure you that during the course of the audience with the Pope there was never any question of an oath against the Pope which Mgr. Lefebvre was alleged to demand from his seminarians. This is news to the Holy See, which has heard of it only from the mouth of Mgr. Lefebvre in the interview in question and in the press conference the next day. It had never been heard of before, even as a theory.

The Pope has never said anything of the kind. Mgr. Lefebvre has never asked the Pope to let him have the text of the oath.

As for the insinuation that this "calumny" of the "oath" was invented to prevent the Pope receiving Mgr. Lefebvre, it seems to me that we have sufficient proof to the contrary in the fact that the Holy Father has five times let Mgr. Lefebvre know he would be happy to receive him, requiring nothing from him beforehand but a sign of repentance or at least of good will.

In the autograph letter of 29 June 1975 we read: "He (the Pope) awaits with impatience the day when he will have the happiness of opening his arms to you, to manifest a re-found communion, when you have responded to the demands he has just formulated. Now he trusts this intention to the Lord, who rejects no prayer."

At his meeting with Mgr. Lefebvre on 19 March 1976, Monseigneur the Substitute (Archbishop Benelli) spoke to him in the same sense.

In the consistorial discourse on 24 May 1976 the Holy Father said: "We await them (Mgr. Lefebvre and his collaborators) with open heart, our arms ready to embrace them."
In the letter addressed on 9 June 1976 by Monseigneur the Substitute to the Nuncio in Switzerland, which he brought to the knowledge of Mgr. Lefebvre, it says: "He (the Pope) has said, and he says again today, that he is ready to welcome him (Mgr. Lefebvre) as soon as he has given public testimony of obedience to the present successor of Saint Peter and of his acceptance of Vatican Council II.

P. Dhanis repeated the same thing to Mgr. Lefebvre when he met him on 27 June 1976. And in a Press Office answer to a question, published in L 'Osservatore Romano of 28 August, 1976, it was said: "The arms of the Pope are open."

Quote:The Director of the Vatican Press Office alleges that in the audience I had with the Holy Father on Saturday, 11 September, the Pope did not accuse me of making my seminarians take an oath against the Pope. I am ready to swear on the Crucifix that that accusation was made by the Pope.

Staggered by that accusation I asked him if he could get me the text of the oath.

How otherwise could I have thought of putting that statement in the mouth of the Holy Father? For the oath never existed, either in fact or in my mind.

It is incredible that the Director should tell such outright lies.

Econe, 18 September 1976.

Quote:Dear Friends and Benefactors:

Since the appearance of our last letter, at Eastertime, so many more events have marked out of the history of our work which has since become a center of universal interest: yet another proof, if such was needed, that the people of our time can still be stirred by religious problems and that these problems have a much more important impact on our society than is generally believed.

At the beginning of these events a great many among you have shared their sorrow, their sympathy, and sometimes their worries with us. All have assured us of their fervent prayers. We have received thousands of letters and telegrams and it has been impossible for us to reply to each individually. You will find, therefore, in these lines the expression of our profound gratitude. May they also be a source of encouragement and hope for you.

To help you make those persons who know little about us understand the reasons for our attitude, we insist on two things which seem to us to be very important: the disciplinary aspect and the theological aspect, or the aspect of Faith.

One does not condemn without judgment and one cannot judge if the cause cannot be given a hearing in the forms which assure its perfect and free defense before a tribunal. But we have been condemned without judgment, without being able to plead our cause, and without appearing before any tribunal. From this arbitrary and tyrannical condemnation of the Society of Saint Pius X and its Seminary follow the interdiction of Ordinations and the suspension which concerns us personally. Considering the evident nullity of the first sentence, we do not see how the sentences which are its follow-up can be valid. That is why we are not taking any account of the decisions of an authority which abuses its power.

If it was only a question of a juridical problem and if the unjust sentences only concerned us personally, we would submit in a penitential spirit. However, to this juridical aspect is attached a much more serious motive, that of the safe-guard of our Faith.

In fact, these decisions constrain us to submit ourselves to a new orientation in the Church, an orientation which is the result of an "historic compromise" between Truth and Error.

This "historic compromise" was brought about in the Church by the acceptance of Liberal ideas which were put into operation after the Council by the men of the Liberal Church who succeeded in taking the reins of power in the Church.

It is put into concrete form by the dialogue with the Protestants which has led to the liturgical reform and to the decrees concerning inter-communion and mixed marriages. Dialogue with Communists has resulted in the giving over of entire nations to Socialism or to Marxism, such as Cuba, Viet Nam, and Portugal. Soon it will be Spain, if not Italy. Dialogue with Freemasons has concluded in liberty of worship, liberty of conscience, and freedom of thought which means the suffocation of Truth and morality by error and immorality.

It is in this betrayal of the Church that they would like us to collaborate by bringing us into line with this orientation which has so often been condemned by the Successors of Peter, and by preceding Councils.

We refuse this compromise in order to be faithful to our Faith, our Baptism, and our unique King, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is why we will continue to ordain those whom Providence leads to our Seminary, after having given them a formation which is completely in conformity with the doctrine of the Church, and faithful to the Magisterium of the Successors of Peter.

This year we should have fourteen new priests and we are accepting thirty-five new seminarians, of whom four will be postulants to the brotherhood. We have the great pleasure of welcoming several Italians and Belgians. All of these candidates are on the retreat which starts the academic year.

During this time our priories are being slowly fitted out. Three of these will become active during 1977. We are being asked for everywhere. The groups of faithful Catholics are growing considerably and the priests are not yet numerous enough.

We are greatly counting on your spiritual and material support to permit us to continue the most necessary work for the renovation of souls, the formation of true priests, not to mention that of brothers and nuns.

On 26 September last, two brothers made their profession and two received the habit, while on 29 September we had the pleasure of receiving the profession of Sister Mary Michael, who is of Australian origin and is the first nun of the Society, as well as the blessing of the habit of three American postulants. Eight new women presented themselves to the postulancy on 20 September last.

Fortunately, we are not alone in maintaining the holy  Tradition of the Church in this domain. The novitiates of men and women multiply in spite of the trials which they are suffering from those who should rather bless them.

With the help of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph we hope that the end of this persecution that we are unjustly suffering is forth-coming. God will not abandon His Church even if he allows Her to suffer the Passion of Her Divine Founder.

That in every domain we may make Our Lord Jesus Christ to reign!

This is our aim.

May God bless you by the mediation of Our Lady of the Rosary.

+ Marcel Lefebvre

7 October 1976

Quote:Until now the Holy See refused to publish this firm but fraternal letter, in order to give Archbishop Lefebvre all the time he needed for reflection. But the Archbishop has failed to give the reply that the Pope was waiting for. Instead, he has allowed a distorted interpretation of the Pope’s intervention to be spread, and has continued his own activities.... In these circumstances, His Holiness has to think, as a pastor, not only of bringing one of his brethren back to full ecclesial communion but also of preventing advantage being taken of the good faith of a part of the Christian people through accusations that sin seriously against truth and the unity of the Church.

Quote:To Our Brothers in the Episcopate

Marcel Lefebvre, Former Archbishop-Bishop of Tulle

When We received you in audience on 11 September last at Castelgandolfo, We let you freely express your position and your desires, even though the various aspects of your case were already well known to Us personally. The memory that We still have of your zeal for the faith and the apostolate, as well as of the good you have accomplished in the past at the service of the Church, made Us and still makes Us hope that you will once again become an edifying subject in full ecclesial communion. After the particularly serious actions that you have performed, We have once more asked you to reflect before God concerning your duty.

We have waited a month. The attitude to which your words and acts publicly testify does not seem to have changed. It is true that We have before Us your letter of 16 September in which you affirm: "A common point unites us: the ardent desire to see the cessation of all the abuses that disfigure the Church. How I wish to collaborate in this salutary work, with Your Holiness and under your authority, so that the Church recover Her True countenance.” How must these few words to which your response is limited – and which in themselves are positive – be interpreted? You speak as if you have forgotten your scandalous words and gesture against ecclesial communion – words and gestures that you have never retracted.

As these "scandalous words and gestures" are not specified it is hard to decide to what the Holy Father can be referring. Is it scandalous to reiterate the traditional teaching of the Church; to protest against abuses; to demand that Catholic children should be taught their faith; to celebrate Mass in the manner utilized by so many popes and holy priests for five centuries-and in all essentials for 1,000 years? No, if we are to look for scandal we should look to those bishops who cooperate in the devastation of the Lord 's vineyard or, if they do not actively cooperate, make not the least effort to intervene in the interests of orthodoxy. Dietrich von Hildebrand writes:

"One of the most horrifying and widespread diseases of the Church today is the lethargy of the guardians of the Faith of the Church. I am not thinking here of those bishops who are members of the 'fifth column,' who wish to destroy the Church from within, or to transform it into something completely different. I am thinking of the far more numerous bishops who have no such intentions, but who make no use whatever of their authority when it comes to intervening against heretical theologians or priests, or against blasphemous performances of public worship. They either close their eyes and try, ostrich-style, to ignore the grievous abuses as well as appeals to their duty to intervene, or they fear to be attacked by the press or the mass media and defamed as reactionary, narrow-minded, or medieval. They fear men more than God. The words of St. John Bosco apply to them: 'The power of evil men lives on the cowardice of the good.' One is forced to think of the hireling who abandons his flocks to the wolves when one reflects on the lethargy of so many bishops and superiors who, though still orthodox themselves, do not have the courage to intervene against the most flagrant heresies and abuses in their dioceses or in their orders.

But it is most especially infuriating when certain bishops, who themselves show this lethargy towards heretics, assume a rigorously authoritarian attitude toward those believers who are fighting for orthodoxy, and who are thus doing what the bishops ought to be doing themselves! The drivel of heretics, both priests and laymen, is tolerated; the bishops tacitly acquiesce in the poisoning of the faithful. But they want to silence the faithful believers who take up the cause of orthodoxy the very people who should by rights be the joy of the bishops’ hearts, their consolation, a source of strength for overcoming their own lethargy. Instead, these people are regarded as disturbers of the peace... The failure to use holy to protect the holy Faith leads necessarily to the disintegration of the Church."2

If we are looking for scandal we need only look as far as the campaign to destroy the Society of St. Pius X. It is in perfect conformity with the spirit of the “Conciliar Church” that legitimate resistance to an abuse of power should be termed scandalous, and not the abuse of power itself.

You do not manifest repentance, even for the cause of your suspension a divinis.

It is precisely the Archbishop’s refusal to submit to an abuse of power that caused his suspension. It is those guilty of the abuse of power who should repent.

You do not explicitly express your acceptance of the authority of the Second Vatican Council and of the Holy See – and this constitutes the basis of your problem – and you continue in those personal works of yours which the legitimate Authority has expressly ordered you to suspend.

The Acts of the Second Vatican Council are only Acts of the Ordinary Magisterium. The Council Fathers deliberately chose not to invest even one conciliar document with that infallible status which demands immediate and total acceptance. Mgr. Lefebvre's attitude is the correct attitude of a Catholic towards documents of the Ordinary Magisterium- to receive them with respect and to accept them where they conform with Tradition but to exercise a prudent reserve where they do not -for in such cases the possibility of error does exist.3 What Pope Paul demanded was that the Archbishop must accept the fallible Acts of Vatican II as if they were infallible. Not only was the Archbishop required to accept all the Acts of the Council itself -as has been shown in this book on several occasions, he was required to accept the post-conciliar orientations. Where the Acts of the Council themselves are concerned, there is no bishop in the world who, comes closer to implementing them than Mgr. Lefebvre. The only documents he refused to sign were those on The Church in the Modern World and Religious Liberty. His reasons for doing so are set out in Appendix IV.

Ambiguity results from the duplicity of your language.

Yes, it is quite true. Pope Paul VI is accusing Mgr. Lefebvre of ambiguity and duplicity after approving in forma specifica all the devious actions taken against the Archbishop -and this must include an invitation to a discussion which turned out to be a trial (see p. 45).

On Our part, as We promised you, We are herewith sending you the conclusions of Our reflections.

1. In practice you put yourself forward as the defender and spokes- man of the faithful and of priests "torn apart by what is happening in the Church,” thus giving the sad impression that the Catholic Faith and the essential values of Tradition are not sufficiently respected and lived in a portion of the People of God, at least in certain countries.

As Mgr. Lefebvre made clear during his sermon at Lille, he has never put himself forward as the leader of the traditionalists (as Chapter XIII). The Vatican thus invests him with a title to which he has never laid claim, and then attacks him for laying claim to it! Another example of the “Conciliar Church” in action!

If Mgr. Lefebvre has given the impression that the essential values of Tradition are not respected in certain countries, he is doing no more than state a fact which has been so obvious for so long that it is something which truly faithful Catholics now take for granted. The fact that there is not a single hierarchy in the West prepared to uphold and teach the truths and traditions of our faith is now accepted as quite normal rather than a cause of scandal. Organizations such as Pro Fide in Great Britain of Catholic United for the Faith in the U.S.A.., which have never been connected with Mgr. Lefebvre, have produced thousands of pages of ducumented evidence detailing liturgical, doctrinal, and catechetical abuses which almost invariably remain uncorrected. This is a charge which I would not have the least difficulty in proving where Great Britain is concerned. When they are presented with irrefutable proof that their catechetical directors are preventing Catholic children from learning their faith, the reaction of British bishops is to ignore the interests of the children and leap to the defense of their “experts.” I repeat, this is something I can prove if challenged.

In a message to the People of God issued on 11 October 1977, the Synod of Bishops included the following:

“…the vitality and strength of the entire catechetical activity of the Church is clearly felt almost everywhere. This has produced excellent results for the renewal of the entire community of the Church. ...Despite some areas which cause concern, the number of present initiatives in this field, visible almost everywhere, is striking. Over the past ten years, in all parts of the world, catechesis has become a primary source of vitality leading to a fruitful renewal of the entire community of the Church."

There is only one possible comment regarding this statement-it is quite untrue. As a result of the initiatives taken over the past ten years the results are indeed striking -the accelerating decomposition of the Church throughout the West. To paraphrase once more a statement by Tacitus with which I concluded my book Pope John's Council: "When they create a wilderness they call it a renewal."

But in your interpretation of the facts and in the particular role that you assign yourself, as well as in the way in which you accomplish this role, there is something which misleads the People of God and deceives souls of good will who are justly desirous of fidelity and of spiritual and apostolic progress.

When the Synod of Bishops met to vote upon the document just cited it was approved almost unanimously. If the Pope had wished to accuse bishops of misleading the People of God and of deceiving souls of good will, there was clearly no lack of suitable candidates for such a reproach-the fact that he reserved it for one of the very few bishops to whom it is not applicable is another example of the Conciliar Church in action.

Deviations in the faith or in sacramental practice are certainly very grave, wherever they occur. For a long period of time they have been the object of Our full doctrinal and pastoral attention.

What exactly did Pope Paul mean by his "full doctrinal and pastoral attention"? The manner in which he exercised his authority was well described by Hamish Fraser in the July 1977 issue of Approaches. He comments:

"Having promulgated the New Mass, which was intended by its authors to initiate a permanent liturgical revolution, Pope Paul undoubtedly bears a terrifying responsibility for the consequent liturgical (as well as doctrinal) chaos. Similarly, he bears grave responsibility for the subversion of catholic education. On the one hand, although details concerning catechetical subversion have been reported to the Holy See time and again, nothing has been done to discipline the bishops guilty of imposing heretical catechisms on the schools under their control. On the other hand, by sanctioning the continued use of the New (Dutch) Catechism (subject only to its carrying an Appendix adverting to its most egregious error, which Appendix is simply ignored by those who use this compendium of Neo-Modemist heresies), he gave great comfort to the New Catechists responsible for catechetical subversion… Pope Paul must bear responsibility for the breakdown of Law within the Church and the consequent abuse of power at all levels. His pontificate, probably the most disastrous in history , has been characterized less by 'a suspense of the functions of the ecclesia docens' (teaching Church - Cardinal Newman's description of the state of affairs in the fourth century), than by a suspense of the ecclesia sanctificans (the sanctifying Church) and of the ecclesia gubernans (the governing Church) It is undoubtedly true that, but for this partial suspense of the functions of the ecclesia docens, and the near total chaos concerning the functions of the ecclesia sanctificans and the ecclesia gubernans there would have been no need for Mgr. Lefebvre to found the Econe seminary and there would certainly have been no danger whatsoever of his coming into conflict with the Holy See."

Mr. Fraser's allegations concerning the total inactivity of the Holy See in the face of liturgical, doctrinal, and catechetical abuses are fully corroborated by the letter sent to Pope Paul by twenty-eight French priests on 27 August 1976 and included in this book under that date.

Certainly one must not forget the positive signs of spiritual renewal or of increased responsibility in a good number of Catholics...

With all due respect to the late Holy Father, there is not one indication of renewal anywhere in the Church which can be ascribed to Vatican II. There are, it is true, fruitful and inspiring apostolates such as that of Mother Teresa of Calcutta; however, this was not inspired by Vatican II but pre-dated it. An indication of the true nature of the fruits of Vatican II is provided in Appendix VIII to my book Pope John's Council.

...or the complexity of the cause of the crisis: the immense change: in today's world affects believers at the depth of their being, and renders ever more necessary apostolic concern for those "who are far away." But it remains true that some priests and members of the faithful mask with the name "conciliar" those personal interpretations and erroneous practices that are injurious, even scandalous, and at times sacrilegious.

Take careful note: sacrilege is being committed; the Council is used to justify sacrilege; and it is the Pope him- self who testifies to this fact. It is quite clear that any fault Mgr. Lefebvre might be guilty of would pale into insignificance beside a single act of sacrilege-but it was against Mgr . Lefebvre alone that the Pope took positive action.

But these abuses cannot be attributed either to the Council itself or to the reforms that have legitimately issued therefrom, but rather to a lack of authentic fidelity in their regard. You want to convince the faithful that the proximate cause of the crisis is more than a wrong interpretation of the Council, and that it flows from the Council itself.

Pope Paul was correct in stating that Archbishop Lefebvre claims that the Council is the cause of the crisis but the Pope contradicted all the available evidence in claiming that neither the Council nor the official reforms could, in fact, be blamed for the erroneous, scandalous, and indeed, sacrilegious practices which exist. It must be clearly understood that in making such a statement the Pope was expressing his opinion on a question of fact-i.e.: Have or have not the official reforms helped to create the atmosphere which engendered the abuses? Pope Paul said "No"; Mgr. Lefebvre said "Yes.” In a dispute concerning a matter of fact we must base our decision upon the available evidence and not upon the status of the parties concerned. In his diary giving the background to the encyclical Apostolicae Curae, Cardinal Gasquet relates how, in January 1895, Pope Leo XIII explained to Cardinal Vaughan that a small concession on the part of the Holy See would bring the majority of Englishmen into communion with Rome. He asked for the Cardinal's help in achieving this objective. The Cardinal felt bound to tell the Pope bluntly that his opinion had no "foundation in fact." Subsequent events proved the Cardinal to be right and the Pope to have been completely mistaken -he had put too much faith in the opinions of ecumenically-minded French priests who were totally ignorant of the situation in England. No one in authority likes to admit making an error of judgment and there is a natural tendency among subordinates never to suggest that their superiors have erred. A prelate of lesser character than Cardinal Vaughan would not have spoken so bluntly; the same can be said of St. Paul, Bishop Grosseteste, and St. Catherine of Siena -to name but three of those who have rightly rebuked the Pope of their day for pursuing policies which harmed the Church (See Appendix II). Pope Paul's personal prestige had become inextricably linked with the Council and the post-conciliar reforms and orientations to which he was committed. It is an incontestable fact that never in the history of the Church had there been so sudden and so widespread a decomposition of Catholicism. Historians will certainly record that the Pontificate of Pope Paul VI proved to be the most disastrous during the history of the Church. There is, however, considerable scope for a difference of opinion on the reason for this collapse.

One version, and it is a version which deserves consideration, is that a series of sincere but misguided pontiffs failed to keep pace with an unprecedented advance in human progress, that they failed to adapt the Gospel to the profound developments manifest in every other branch of society and contented themselves with repeating archaic and stereotyped formulae that were meaningless to a mankind which had "come of age." The capital fault of these pontiffs had been to fail to "read the signs of the times." These particular signs were, through the intervention of the Holy Ghost, made manifest to the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council, who at last undertook the urgently needed task of adaptation. It is argued that due to the short-sighted policies of pontiffs prior to Pope John XXIII, the Church was totally unprepared for this process of adaptation and that, to a large extent, it had come too late. Thus, this school of thought argues, the decomposition of the Church would have come anyway; Pope Paul and his policies are in no way to blame (except where he tried to uphold the traditional positions as in the case of Humanae Vitae); and if it had not been for the post-conciliar orientations the disaster would have been even greater.

Archbishop Lefebvre's view is that it is precisely the post-conciliar reforms and orientations to which Pope Paul himself was committed, and the virtual carte blanche which this Pope had given to Modernists to undermine the faith in any way that suited them (rarely opposing them with anything more than pious exhortations), to which the present crisis is due. Humanly speaking, it would have been almost impossible for Pope Paul VI to admit this -even to himself. He would have thus admitted not simply that his pontificate had been the most disastrous in the history of the Church but that his policies had been responsible for the disaster. When someone in authority initiates a policy which does not succeed, the almost invariable reaction is to find some explanation other than that the policy itself was wrong. When an education official introduces a new system of teaching reading which results in illiterate children, he will blame the teachers, their methods, lack of parental cooperation -anything and anyone but his own judgment. The history of the papacy makes it clear that the popes themselves are only too human. We should not be surprised that Pope Paul attempted to justify the orientations to which he was committed -it would have been a miracle of grace if he had not. If we read the history of the papacy we shall find many occasions when we could wish miracles of grace had occurred but didn't!

This has been a long comment on a short passage in the Pope's letter -but it involves what is perhaps the most crucial issue for faithful Catholics in the whole controversy between the Archbishop and Pope Paul VI. The faithful Catholic tends to presume that anyone who disagrees with the Pope on any topic whatsoever must certainly be wrong -and he cannot be condemned for this attitude as it has been one that has been inculcated for centuries, particularly in Protestant countries. “Keep the faith " has been equated with "Give uncritical support to every papal act and opinion." Now that it has come to the point that there can be a contradiction between keeping the faith and supporting the Pope, few orthodox Catholics are able to make the necessary distinction. I am arguing here that the Pope's interpretation of the reasons for the crisis is incorrect and that of Archbishop Lefebvre correct, simply that the Pope could be mistaken. I will leave readers to examine the evidence presented in my book Pope John's Council and decide for themselves whether or not it establishes that the Council and the official reforms and orientations are responsible for the present crisis.

I will content myself here with citing just one specific example. I am sure that every orthodox Catholic, whatever his views about Mgr. Lefebvre, would agree that there has been a great decline in reverence towards the Blessed Sacrament, particularly among children. Pope Paul VI insisted that this has nothing to do with the official reform, Mgr. Lefebvre insists that it does. Before the reform children knelt to receive Holy Communion on the tongue from the consecrated hands of a priest. Now it is quite common for them to receive it standing, in the hand, from one of their teachers or even from a fellow pupil. How can it be argued that these revolutionary changes have not contributed to the decline in reverence? Yet these revolutionary changes were official orientations to which the Pope himself was committed.

Moreover, you act as if you had a particular role in this regard. But the mission of discerning and remedying the abuses is first of all Ours; it is the mission of all the bishops who work together with Us. Indeed, We do not cease to raise Our voice against these excesses: Our discourse to the Consistory of 24 May last repeated this in clear terms. More than anyone else We hear the suffering of distressed Christians, and We respond to the cry of the faithful longing for faith and the spiritual life. This is not the place to remind you, Brother, of all the acts of Our Pontificate that testify to Our constant concern to insure for the Church fidelity to the true Tradition, and to enable Her with God's grace to face the present and the future.

Pope Paul was quite correct in stating that the Pope and the Bishops have a mission to discern and remedy abuses -but having a mission is not the same as discharging it faithfully.

The "acts " to which the Pope referred consisted in the main only of words, and even here he made only generalized condemnations. The legion of Modernists which proliferated throughout the Church, often in official positions, could rest assured that its members would remain exempt from specific papal condemnation; this was reserved for Mgr. Lefebvre. Cardinal Heenan remarked as early as 1968 that the Pope: "...constantly returns to the theme of the erroneous teaching of theology. Unfortunately, his condemnations are made in general terms. Since nobody knows which theologians are being condemned it is impossible for bishops to take any action.”4 As for the response of the bishops to "the suffering of distressed Christians"-as many distressed Christians can confirm, appeals to bishops frequently remain unanswered, a convenient way of avoiding responsibility. And when an answer is received, that given to the People of God by the Synod of Bishops regarding catechetics is only too typical – a great renewal, we are told, is taking place in every country!

Finally, your behavior is contradictory .You want, so you say, to remedy the abuses that disfigure the Church; you regret that authority in the Church is not sufficiently respected; you wish to safeguard authentic faith, esteem for the ministerial priesthood and fervor for the Eucharist in its sacrificial and sacramental fullness. Such zeal would, in itself, merit Our encouragement, since it is a question of exigencies which, together with evangelization and the unity of Christians, remain at the heart of Our preoccupations and of Our mission. But how can you at the same time, in order to fulfil this role claim that you are obliged to act contrary to the recent Council, in opposition to your brethren in the Episcopate, to distrust the Holy See itself -which you call the "Rome of the Neo-Modernist and Neo-Protestant tendency"-and to set yourself up in open disobedience to Us? If you truly want to work "under Our authority, " as you affirm in your last private letter, it is immediately necessary to put an end to these ambiguities and contradictions.

Mgr. Lefebvre's behavior is not in the least contradictory. Respect for authority does not involve an obligation to submit to an abuse of power. True respect for authority means that where it is abused it must be resisted -witness the case of Bishop Grosseteste (see Appendix 11).

2. Let us come now to the more precise requests which you formulated during the audience of 11 September. You would like to see recognized the right to celebrate Mass in various places of worship according to the Tridentine rite. You wish also to continue to train candidates for the priesthood according to your criteria, ''as before the Council," in seminaries apart, as at Econe. But behind these questions and other similar ones, which we shall examine later on in detail, it is truly necessary to see the intricacy of the problem: and the problem is theological. For these questions have become concrete ways of expressing an ecclesiology that is warped in essential points.

All that Mgr. Lefebvre wishes to do is to uphold the teachings and traditions which he upheld as a bishop during the pontificates of Popes Pius XII and John XXIII. Pope Paul's response can only mean that he considered the ecclesiology of the pre-conciliar Church to be warped. Well, it's a point of view!

What is indeed at issue is the question-which must truly be called fundamental -of your clearly proclaimed refusal to recognize, in its whole, the authority of the Second Vatican Council and that of the Pope. This refusal is accompanied by an action that is orientated towards propagating and organizing what must indeed, unfortunately, be called a rebellion. This is the essential issue, and it is untenable.

To repeat a point which has been made already, the Archbishop does not refuse to recognize the authority of the Second Vatican Council -he refuses to accord its documents with the status of infallible Acts of the Extraordinary Magisterium when, as Pope Paul himself admitted, they are only Acts of the Ordinary Magisterium which, although infallible on occasions, can be fallible and even contain error. And the action described by the Pope as a "rebellion " is no more than a refusal -to submit to an abuse of power. It is not the position of Mgr. Lefebvre which is untenable.

Is it necessary to remind you that you are Our brother in the Episcopate and moreover -a fact that obliges you to remain even more closely united to the See of Peter -that you have been named an assistant to the Papal Throne? Christ has given the supreme authority in His Church to Peter and to the Apostolic College, that is, to the Pope and to the college of Bishops una cum Capite. In regard to the Pope, every Catholic admits that the words of Jesus to Peter determine also the charge of Peter's legitimate successors: " ...whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven" (Mt 16:19); " ...feed my sheep"(Jn 21:17); “confirm your brethren" (Lk 22:32).

There is no little irony in the fact that whereas Archbishop Lefebvre would accept what the Pope has written here in its totality, it is stated in the Agreement on Authority, produced by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission in 1976, that:

“Claims on behalf of the Roman See as commonly presented in the past have put a greater weight on the Petrine texts (Matt. 16. 18. 19; Luke 22. 31, 32; John 21. 15-17) than they are generally thought to be able to bear. However, many Roman Catholic scholars do not now feel it necessary to stand by the former exegesis of these texts in every respect (para. 23a).”

Thus the interpretation which the Pope has placed upon these texts is challenged by Catholic bishops appointed to this Commission by the Vatican in an Agreement published with the approval of the Vatican. It is true that the three Agreed Statements have not been approved by the Vatican, only approval to publish them has been given; and that they only represent the personal opinions of the signatories. But up to this point not one of these three betrayals of the faith has been denounced by the Vatican, nor has any action been taken to discipline the bishops concerned. Unlike Mgr. Lefebvre, they could count on an effusive welcome from Pope Paul whenever they cared to visit the Vatican. This is something which Bishop C. Butler, one of the Catholic signatories, pointed out with considerable relish in a broadcast on B.B.C. Radio on 9 October 1977, when he stated:

"The Roman Catholic members of this Commission didn't choose themselves, they were chosen by the authorities at Rome, the authorities at Rome didn't presumably intend to choose either inefficient people or people whose loyalty to the Church and her traditions was in doubt, that these members have been able unanimously to sign each of these statements as they came along, that the statements were communicated to Rome and, of course, on the Anglican side to the Archbishop of Canterbury, before they were published, that the first of these statements has now been before the world for six years, and if we have seriously compromised the Catholic faith or shown intentional or unintentional disloyalty to it, all I can say is that it is about time the Church authorities stepped in and either sacked us or showed that they disapproved.”

Bishop Butler is, of course, speaking with his tongue in his cheek here. He knows very well that in the "Conciliar Church" no one will be disciplined for betraying the faith, only for upholding it.

And the First Vatican Council specified in these terms the assent due to the Sovereign Pontiff: "The pastors of every rank and of every rite and the faithful, each separately and all together, are bound by the duty of hierarchical subordination and of true obedience, not only in questions of faith and morals, but also in those that touch upon discipline and the government of the Church throughout the entire world. Thus, by preserving the unity of communion and profession of faith with the Roman Pontiff, the Church is a single flock under one Pastor. Such is the doctrine of Catholic truth, from which no one can separate himself without danger for his faith and his salvation " (Dogmatic Constitution, Pastor Aetemus, ch. 3, DZ 3060). Concerning bishops united with the Sovereign Pontiff, their power with regard to the universal Church is solemnly exercised in the Ecumenical Councils, according to the words of Jesus to the body of the Apostles: whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven"(Mt. 16:19). And now in your conduct you refuse to recognize, as must be done, these two ways in which supreme authority is exercised.

An important distinction must be made here between a refusal to recognize the existence of an authority and a refusal to submit to it in a particular instance. Those who refuse to accept the existence of the papal prerogatives as such are guilty of schism and heresy. Those who refuse to submit to the exercise of papal authority in a particular instance are only guilty of disobedience; if the instance in question involves an abuse of power this disobedience involves not guilt but merit. This distinction between schism and disobedience is explained in the Dictionnaire de Theologie Catholique by less an authority than Father Yves Congar, a virulent opponent of Mgr. Lefebvre.

Pope Paul continues:

Each bishop is indeed an authentic teacher for preaching to the people entrusted to him that faith which must guide their thoughts and conduct and dispel the errors that menace the flock. But, by their nature, "the charge of teaching and governing… cannot be exercised except in hierarchical communion with the head of the College and with its members” (Constitution Lumen Gentium, 21; cf. Also 25). A fortiori, a single bishop without a canonical mission does not have, in actu expedito ad agendum, the faculty of deciding in general what the rule of faith is or of determining what Tradition is. In practice you are claiming that you alone are the judge of what Tradition embraces.

Needless to say, Mgr. Lefebvre has never made any such claim. All that he is doing is what every Catholic – bishop, or layman – has not simply the right but the duty to do, and that is to speak up in defense of the faith when it is endangered no matter by whom. Thus when Pope John XXII claimed in 1331 that the souls of the just do not enjoy the Beatific Vision immediately after death, but must await the final judgment of God on the Last Day, he was rightly denounced by some Franciscan theologians who demanded that he be brought before a council for trial and condemnation. The Pope appointed a commission of theologians to examine the question; the commission convicted him of error; he made a public retraction on 3 December 1334 and died the next day.

Similarly, the General Instruction (Institutio Generalis) to the New Order of the Mass was approved by Pope Paul VI. Certain articles, notably Article 7, provoked such outrage among the faithful that the Pope felt himself bound to order their correction. Had the faithful waited for those with a canonical mandate to denounce these articles they would still be waiting!

You say that you are subject to the Church and faithful to Tradition, by the sole fact that you obey certain norms of the past that were decreed by the predecessor of Him to whom God has today conferred the powers given to Peter. That is to say, on this point also, the concept of “Tradition” that you invoke is distorted. Tradition is not a rigid and dead notion, a fact of a certain static sort which at a given moment of history blocks the life of this active organism which is the Church, that is, the Mystical Body of Christ.

On the contrary, particularly where the liturgy is concerned, it is Mgr. Lefebvre who is the defender of that salutary development expounded by Cardinal Newman. It is the proponents of the New Mass who wish to fly in the face of history and impose a rigid, dead, static notion of liturgical development by reverting to more primitive liturgical forms on the grounds that what is earlier must be better. This is an attitude that was condemned most forcefully by Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Mediator Dei (paras. 64-69).

It is up to the Pope and to Councils to exercise judgment in order to discern in the traditions of the Church that which cannot be renounced without infidelity to the Lord and to the Holy Spirit – the adapted to facilitate the prayer and the mission of the Church throughout a variety of times and places, in order better to communicate it, without an unwarranted surrender of principles. Hence Tradition is inseparable from the living Magisterium of the Church, just as it is inseparable from Sacred Scripture. “Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, and the Magisterium of the Church... are so linked and joined together that one of these realities cannot exist without the others, and under the action of the Holy Spirit to the salvation of souls” (Constitution Dei Verbum, 10).

This is all true, but it does not follow that every decision of ecclesiastical authority is automatically infallible and could not constitute an abuse of power.

With the special assistance of the Holy Spirit, the Popes and the Ecumenical Councils have acted in this common way. And it is precisely this that the Second Vatican Council did.

Quite the contrary. Vatican II, in contrast with preceding Councils, took the unprecedented step of declaring that it had not availed itself of the special assistance of the Holy Ghost given to Ecumenical Councils when it stated specifically that none of its teaching was to be considered infallible. In an address delivered on 12 January 1966, Pope Paul himself stated explicitly:

"Some ask what authority -what theological qualification -the Council has attached to its teachings, knowing that it has avoided solemn dogmatic definitions backed by the Church's infallible teaching authority .The answer is familiar to those who remember the conciliar declaration of 6 March 1964, repeated on 16 November 1964. In view of the pastoral character of the Council, it has avoided pronouncing in an extraordinary way dogmas carrying the note of infallibility. Nevertheless its teachings carry the weight of the supreme ordinary teaching authority."

Pope Paul thus contradicted himself in claiming that Vatican II acted precisely as previous councils had done. This is precisely what it did not do!

Nothing that was decreed in this Council, or in the reforms that We enacted in order to put the Council into effect, is opposed to what the two-thousand-year-old Tradition of the Church considers as fundamental and immutable. We are the guarantor of this, not in virtue of Our personal qualities but in virtue of the charge which the Lord has conferred upon Us as legitimate Successor of Peter, and in virtue of the special assistance that He has promised to Us as well as to Peter: "I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail" (Lk 22:32). The universal episcopate is guarantor with Us of this.

As Appendix IV will show, some teaching in the Declaration on Religious Liberty is opposed to what a series of popes has taught consistently with the authority of the Supreme Ordinary Magisterium, possibly even in an extraordinary and infallible manner in the encyclical Quanta Cura. It has also been the consistent teaching of the Magisterium that Catholics should not take part in the services of heretical or schismatic bodies, yet this is now encouraged. This prohibition derives from the very nature of the Church founded by Christ. Those who organize religious services outside and in opposition to the one, true Church are in opposition to Christ Himself, Whose Mystical Body the Church is. To permit Catholics to take part in services organized by, say, Protestants must be, and is, taken to imply that these bodies are legitimate branches of the Church.

Now if it is conceded that previous teaching on Religious Liberty and common worship was erroneous, or at least not immutable, why should we have any confidence that the teaching of Vatican II is correct? We are reduced to the situation that it is only teaching which has been solemnly declared as infallible to which we can give our wholehearted acceptance! The great French bishop Bossuet recognized the importance of the continuity of teaching in a pastoral letter to the new Catholics of his diocese:

"We never disparage the faith of our fathers but hand it on exactly as we have received it. God willed that the truth should not come down to us without any evident novelties, it is in this way that we recognize what has always been believed and, accordingly, what must always be believed. It is, so to speak, from this word always that the truth and the promise derive their authority, an authority which would vanish completely the moment an interruption was discovered anywhere.”

The example concerning common worship illustrates this point perfectly. Unless the Vatican expects the faithful to behave like robots, programmed to change direction at the whim of their controller, what reaction does it expect of us when in 1963 (in accord with a 2,000-year tradition) we are taught that it is wrong to worship with heretics and then in 1964 (Decree on Ecumenism) we are taught that it is not wrong?

Again, you cannot appeal to the distinction between what is dogmatic and what is pastoral, to accept certain texts of this Council and to refuse others. Indeed, not everything in the Council requires an assent of the same nature: only what is affirmed by definitive acts as an object of faith or as a truth related to faith requires an assent of faith.

And there is not a single document of the entire Council which demands the assent of faith.

But the rest also forms part of the solemn Magisterium of the Church, to which each member of the faithful owes a confident acceptance and a sincere application.

This is quite true, but in the accepted sense of the assent to be given to the teaching of the Ordinary Magisterium, particularly with regard to novelties. Once again, Dorn Nau's study which was referred to on page 178 should clarify the nature of this assent for those in any doubt concerning the difference between the Ordinary and Extraordinary Magisterium. It should be added that this study is intended to reinforce the authority of the Ordinary Magisterium and not to diminish it in any way.

It must also be noted with respect to this passage from the Pope's letter that he most certainly does not require each and every member of the faithful to accept and apply the teaching of the Council. The Council ordered (Liturgy Constitution, para. 116) that Gregorian Chant be given pride of place in liturgical services. Apart from those institutes controlled by Mgr. Lefebvre, this instruction is almost universally ignored -and ignored with impunity.

You say moreover that you do not always see how to reconcile certain texts of the Council, or certain dispositions which We have enacted in order to put the Council into practice, with the wholesome Tradition of the Church and in particular with the Council of Trent or the affirmations of Our predecessors. These are for example: the responsibility of the College of Bishops united with the Sovereign Pontiff, the new Ordo Missae, ecumenism, religious freedom, the attitude of dialogue, evangelization in the modern world. ...It is not the place, in this letter, to deal with each of these problems. The precise tenor of the documents, with the totality of its nuances and its context, the authorized explanations, the detailed and objective commentaries which have been made, are of such a nature to enable you to overcome these personal difficulties. Absolutely secure counsellors, theologians, and spiritual directors would be able to help you even more with God's enlightenment, and We are ready to facilitate this fraternal assistance for you.

On 18 June 1977 the Secretariat of State received an offer from the Archbishop to "accept all the texts of Vatican II either in their obvious meaning or in an official interpretation which ensures their full concordance with the authentic teaching of the Church." His offer, together with other proposals aimed at healing the breach with the Vatican, was rejected as unacceptable by Pope Paul in a letter dated 20 June 1977. These documents will be dealt with under their respective dates.

But how can an interior personal difficulty – a spiritual drama which We respect – permit you to set yourself up publicly as a judge of what has been legitimately adopted, practically with unanimity, and knowingly to lead a portion of the faithful into your refusal?

This is a far from subtle attempt to insinuate that the Archbishop is the instigator of resistance to the reforms of the “Conciliar Church.” On the contrary, this resistance long predated the emergence of the Archbishop and his seminary as focal points of inspiration and encouragement to Catholics wishing to remain true to the traditional faith. For example, the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales sent every priest in the country a copy of the Critical Study of the New Mass sent to the Pope by Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci in 1969. The name of the Archbishop was hardly known in Britain at that time. I support the Archbishop because he upholds the beliefs and traditions which I already upheld when I first came to know of him.

If justifications are useful in order to facilitate intellectual acceptance -and We hope that the troubled or reticent faithful will have the wisdom, honesty, and humility to accept those justifications -that are widely placed at their disposal-they are not in themselves necessary for the assent of obedience that is due to the Ecumenical Council and to the decisions of the Pope. It is the ecclesial sense that is at issue.

The type of justification given to the faithful has already been indicated in the response of the 19?7 Synod of Bishops to documented complaints concerning the "New Catechetics" -that we are in the presence of an almost universal and fruitful catechetical renewal!

In effect you and those who are following you are endeavoring to come to a standstill at a given moment in the life of the Church. By the same token you refuse to accept the living Church, which is the Church that always has been: you break with the Church's legitimate pastors and scorn the legitimate exercise of their charge.

The term "the living Church " is yet another novelty. The Pope says that it is the Church that always has been, but the use of the term "living" only makes sense in opposition to "dead "-just as the term "Conciliar Church ': only makes sense in opposition to the "Preconciliar Church." As has already been stated, where the liturgy is concerned it is the "living Church " which wishes to reverse a process of development lasting almost 2,000 years under the guidance of the Holy Ghost by reverting to what it terms more "primitive forms "-precisely the argument used by the Protestant Reformers when they made similar changes to destroy the sacrificial nature of the Mass. The term "living Church" is also a useful example of the manner in which the language used in the "Conciliar Church " is approximating more and more closely to the Newspeak of Nineteen Eighty-Four. In Newspeak words frequently imply the opposite of their apparent meaning, and we now have the term "living Church " used to describe a Church which has not been closer to dying since the Arian crisis – when a weak Pope confirmed the excommunication of the great champion of orthodoxy, St. Athanasius. There are no signs of new vitality anywhere in the Church today – whatever is vital and fruitful is a survival from the “Preconciliar (dead?) Church.” The frenetic hysteria of the Pentecostal movement - so often cited as a sign of renewal – is one of the clearest indications of approaching death, the final paroxysms of the dying body. But the Body of Christ cannot die – the Church has been written off on many occasions but has always survived – just as She will survive the present crisis – if only as a remnant. It is far from fanciful to see Econe as a source of the antibodies which are already emerging to fight the contagion and restore the Mystical Body to health.

And so you claim not even to be affected by the orders of the Pope, or by the suspension a divinis, as you lament "subversion' in the Church.

Is it not clear proof of the extent of the subversion in the Church during the Pontificate of Pope Paul VI that Her most courageous and orthodox bishop was suspended a divinis the crime of forming orthodox priests? As has already been made clear in this book on several occasions, the refusal of the Archbishop to accept any of the sanctions following his refusal to close his seminary is not more than the logical corollary of his contention that the order to do this was unjust.

Is it not in this state of mind that you have ordained priests without dimissorial letters and against Our explicit command, thus creating a group of priests who are in an irregular situation in the Church and who are under grave ecclesiastical penalties? Moreover, you hold that the suspension you have incurred applies only to the celebration of the sacraments according to the new rite, as if they were something improperly introduced into the Church, which you go so far as to call schismatic, and you think that you evade this sanction when you ad- minister the formulas of the past and against the established forms (cf: 1 Cor 14:40).

Mgr .Lefebvre has indeed referred to the "Conciliar Church " being in schism, but in a light-hearted manner. He has a highly-developed sense of humor and can be provocative at times. When charged with being in schism he has replied that in so far as it has broken with the Traditional Church it is the "Conciliar Church " which is in schism. However, he has always made it clear that he recognizes the authority of the Pope, a fact proved by all his letters to Pope Paul. They are not the letters of a bishop who is seriously maintaining that the Pope is in schism!

From the same erroneous conception springs your abuse of celebrating the Mass called that of St. Pius V.

So it is now an abuse to celebrate a form of Mass dating back in all essentials over 1,000 years and which, during that time, has been a source of sanctification for countless millions of the faithful. Well, it's a point of view!

You know full well that this rite had itself been the result of successive changes, and that the Roman Canon remains the first of the Eucharistic Prayers authorized today.

Yes, but the Roman Mass had developed by gradual and natural process for over 1,000 years until it was finally codified by St. Pius V. I have provided its history in some detail in my pamphlet The Tridentine Mass.5 Surely the Holy Father, or whoever wrote this letter for him, cannot expect any Catholic with a rudimentary knowledge of Church history to take seriously a comparison between the evolution of the traditional Mass and the concoction of a new Mass (something the Council did not order) within the space of a few years and with the cooperation of heretics. Leaving aside the fact that the New Mass has been constructed in such a fashion that it can be celebrated in a form containing hardly a reference to the sacrificial nature of the Mass, in which form it is entirely acceptance to some Protestants. The New Mass has also proved to be a disaster pastorally and aesthetically. No layman was better qualified to comment on the liturgy than Dietrich von Hildebrand. He wrote:

“The new liturgy was simply not formed by saints, homines religiosi, and artistically gifted men, but has been worked out by so-called experts, who are not at all aware that in our time there is a lack of talent for such things. Today is a time of incredible talent for technology and medical research, but not for the organic shaping of the expression of the religious world. We live in a world without poetry, and this means that one should approach the treasures handed in from more fortunate times with twice as much reverence, and not with the illusion that we can do it better ourselves.”6

The present reform derived its raison d’être and its guidelines from the Council and from the historical sources of the Liturgy.

In my pamphlet The Roman Rite Destroyed I have quoted from such irreproachable authorities as Cardinal Heenan, Archbishop R. J. Dwyer, and Father Louis Bouyer to the effect that the liturgical reform is far more radical than that envisaged by the Council Fathers (who were given the opportunity of discussing only general principles). It is actually a contradiction of both what the Fathers intended and the entire papally-approved liturgical movement of the present century.

It enables the laity to draw greater nourishment from the word of God.

In this case it seems permissible to wonder why millions of Catholics who attended the Old Mass have ceased attending since the imposition of the New.

Their more effective participation leaves intact the unique role of the priest acting in the person of Christ.

This statement is quite true in that only the priest can consecrate, but in practice many of the changes have served to obscure the nature of the unique priestly role. This minimization has occurred by allowing the laity to perform functions which had been reserved to the celebrant in the Tridentine Mass. Sacred vessels which only he could touch are now handled by all and sundry; laymen and women can now read the lessons or preach the sermons; only his consecrated hands had been allowed to touch the host -now it can be distributed by teenaged girls into the hands of standing communicants. No distinction is made in the new Eucharistic Prayers between the role of the celebrant and that of the congregation. With Eucharistic Prayer II in particular, the priest can appear to be no more than the spokesman for a concelebrating congregation.

We have sanctioned this reform by Our authority, requiring that it be adopted by all Catholics.

The original General Instruction (lnstitutio Generalis) to the New Mass and the new rite of Baptism were also sanctioned by the Pope's authority -but they subsequently required modifications in the interests of orthodoxy. It is not correct to state that the Pope has required all Catholics to adopt it - the Instruction applies only to Catholics of the Roman Rite and does not affect the Eastern Churches. Nor has it ever been made clear whether such variants of the Roman Rite as the Dominican Rite are affected. Nor is it certain that the Pope has imposed the New Mass with the required legal forms necessary to make it mandatory even for the Roman Rite. But this is a very complex question which will be examined in detail in my book Pope Paul's New Mass.

If, in general, We have not judged it good to permit any further delays or exceptions to this adoption, it is with a view to the spiritual good and the unity of the entire ecclesial community, because for Catholics of the Roman Rite, the Ordo Missae is a privileged sign of their unity.

With all due respect to the late Holy Father, such a claim constitutes a mockery of the faithful. Where in the Roman Rite is that unity which was once its most precious characteristics? There are now so many permutations officially permitted that it is possible for every priest in any diocese to celebrate the Mass in a different manner-not to mention the countless unofficial and even sacrilegious variations which are perpetrated throughout the West with total impunity. In their book Les Fumees de Satan, Andre Mignot and Michel de Saint-Pierre have presented nearly 300 pages of documented instances of catechetical and liturgical abuses -selected from 4,000 cases which they had investigated. All the examples they give can be substantiated with names, dates, and places. Every Catholic who reads French should obtain a copy. It will have a place in history as perhaps the most terrifying indictment of the "Living Church " yet assembled. And what was the reaction of the French bishops? Without making the least attempt to deny the factual nature of the documentation in the book they issued the most vicious public denunciation of the authors. No less a person than Father Henri Bruckberger sprang to their defense. Father Bruckberger is a hero of the French Resistance and the most distinguished man of letters among the French clergy today. As for the French bishops, he wrote:

"They knew Michel de Saint-Pierre and Andre Mignot only too well; they knew that the authors had such respect for the sacred character of the episcopacy that, in formulating so outrageous a communiqué the bishops knew that they risked neither a beating nor a summons before the courts, which they fully deserved. Thus our bishops are transformed into men without fear for the simple reason that they are not putting themselves at risk. ...They have the sudden temerity of men overcome with terror who try to cover up facts which accuse them personally. This episcopal communiqué constitutes the most terrible admission. Our bishops have acknowledged publicly not only that they are aware of the abuses brought to light in Les Fumees de Satan, but that they are the knowing and willing accomplices. Here and now the object of the book has been achieved. It is the hour when Tartuffe's mask has been torn away completely.”7

The type of abuse cited in Les Fumees de Satan is common to all the countries of the West-as is the complicity of all the Western hierarchies whose members, if they don't actually approve of the abuses, tolerate them. The only form of Mass which they will not tolerate is the one they were ordained to offer. So much for the New Mass as "a privileged sign " of the unity of the Catholics of the Roman Rite.

It is also because, in your case, the old rite is in fact the expression of a warped ecclesiology, ...

It is quite true that the Tridentine Mass is the most fitting expression of the traditional Faith, the Faith expressed with such clarity by the Council of Trent. The Tridentine Mass expresses clearly the concept of a Church with Her eyes fixed firmly on heaven; a solemn sacrifice offered to a transcendent, omnipotent God; the exalted role of the priest at the altar as mediator between God and man. A warped ecclesiology? Well, it's a point of view!

...and a ground for dispute with the Council and its reforms, under the pretext that in the old rite alone are preserved, without their meaning being obscured, the true sacrifice of the Mass and the ministerial priesthood. We cannot accept this erroneous judgment, this unjustified accusation, nor can We tolerate that the Lord's Eucharist, the sacrament of unity, should be the object of such division (cf. 1 Cor 11:18), and that it should even be an instrument and sign of rebellion.

The issue here is whether the Archbishop's judgment is correct or erroneous. I have already provided ample evidence in my pamphlet The Roman Rite Destroyed to prove that the doctrine of "the true sacrifice of the Mass and the ministerial priesthood" are, at the very least, expressed far less clearly in the new rite than the old, particularly where Eucharistic Prayer II is used. The most conclusive proof of this is the fact that a number of Protestants are cited in the pamphlet as stating that they are happy with the new prayers and recognize a Protestant theology in them. This is the most striking corroboration there could be of Mgr. Lefebvre's allegation -which is, of course, that put forward in the Critical Study sent to Pope Paul by Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci. It is also only necessary for anyone conversant with Protestant eucharistic theology to examine the traditional Mass carefully and make a note of any prayers he considers incompatible with Protestant belief. He will find at once that almost all such prayers have been eliminated from the new rite.

Of course there is room in the Church for a certain pluralism, but in licit matters and in obedience. This is not understood by those who refuse the sum total of the liturgical reform; nor indeed on the other hand by those who imperil the holiness of the real presence of the Lord and of His Sacrifice.

What we are witnessing in the Church today is not pluralism but anarchy-anarchy in which anything is tolerated but the traditional Mass. Those guilty of irreverence and sacrilege are (occasionally) rebuked in general terms-but their excesses are tolerated.

In the same way there can be no question of a priestly formation which ignores the Council.

As was shown on pages 69-70, there can be no doubt that Econe comes closer to the norms laid down by the Council and subsequent instructions than almost any other seminary in the West.

We cannot therefore take your requests into consideration because it is a question of acts which have already been committed in rebellion against the one true Church of God. Be assured that this severity is not dictated by a refusal to make a concession on such and such a point of discipline or liturgy, but, given the meaning and the extent of your acts in the present context, to act thus would be on Our part to accept the introduction of a seriously erroneous concept of the Church and of Tradition. This is why, with the full consciousness of Our duties, We say to you, Brother, that you are in error. And with the full ardour of Our fraternal love, as also with all the weight of Our authority as the Successor of Peter, We invite you to retract, to correct yourself and to cease from inflicting wounds upon the Church of Christ.

3. Specifically, what do We ask of you?

(a) First and foremost a Declaration that will rectify matters, for Ourself and also for the People of God who have a right to clarity and who can no longer bear without damage such equivocations.

This Declaration will therefore have to affirm that you sincerely adhere to the Second Vatican Council and all its documents- sensu obvio -which were adopted by the Council Fathers and approved and promulgated by Our authority. For such an adherence has always been the rule, in the Church, since the beginning in the matter of Ecumenical Councils.

It is not a question of the Archbishop's accepting all the documents, there are only two that he didn't sign. And, as has been pointed out already, when he offered to accept these in June 1977, on the understanding that they would be interpreted in the light of the traditional teaching, his offer was rejected. And once again, the Pope is referring to Vatican II as if it did not differ from preceding Ecumenical Councils. He is asking the Archbishop to give the assent due to the Extraordinary Magisterium to documents of the Ordinary Magisterium.

It must be clear that you equally accept the decisions that We have made since the Council in order to put it into effect, with the help of the Departments of the Holy See; among other things, you must explicitly recognize the legitimacy of the reformed liturgy, notably of the Ordo Missae, and Our right to require its adoption by the entirety of the Christian people.

In his letter delivered to the Vatican on 18 June 1977, the Archbishop asked for co-existence of the old and new rites, which makes it quite clear that he accepts the legitimacy of the new. In the Archbishop's letter to Dr. Eric M. de Saventhem dated 17 September 1976 he had already made this point, stating that he would be prepared to accept the peaceful co-existence of the two rites with the faithful -being given the choice of which "family" of rites they preferred to adhere to. The text of this letter is included under the date given.

You must also accept the binding character of the rules of Canon Law now in force which, for the greater part, still correspond with the content of the Code of Canon Law of Benedict XV, without excepting the part which deals with canonical penalties.

As far as concerns Our person, you will make a point of desisting from and retracting the grave accusations or insinuations which you have publicly levelled against Us, against the orthodoxy of Our faith and Our fidelity to Our charge as the Successor of Peter, and against Our immediate collaborators.

It is significant that the Pope gives no details of these alleged accusations. Those who have read this far will have noted the profound respect of the Archbishop towards the person of the Pope, either when writing to him or speaking of him. This respect is also manifest throughout Mgr. Lefebvre's book, A Bishop Speaks. The Archbishop explained his own attitude to the person of Pope Paul VI and to other bishops in an address delivered in Montreal on 31 May 1978.

"Pray for the Pope; pray that God will guide him to abandon the path along which he has allowed himself to be led, a path which is not the way of the good God. Ecumenism is not God's way. Pray for the Bishops, do not insult them. I do not think that a single expression of disrespect towards the Holy Father can be found anywhere in my writings. I do not insult the Bishops. I consider them to be my brothers and I pray for them that they will return to the way of the Tradition of the Church. I am sure that this will happen one day. We must have confidence. We are passing through a tornado; the only anchor to which we can attach ourselves is the tradition of the Church because it cannot err; our Catholic faith has been, is, and will always be the same."8

With regard to the Bishops, you must recognize their authority in respective dioceses, by abstaining from preaching in those dioceses and administering the sacraments there: the Eucharist, Confirmation, Holy Orders, etc., when these Bishops expressly object to your doing so.

Finally, you must undertake to abstain from all activities (such as Conferences, publications, etc.) contrary to this Declaration, and formally to reprove all those initiatives which make use of your name in the face of this Declaration.

It is a question here of the minimum to which every Catholic Bishop must subscribe: this adherence can tolerate no compromise. As soon as you show Us that you accept its principle, we will propose the practical manner of presenting this Declaration. This is the first condition in order that the suspension a divinis be lifted.

(b) It will then remain to solve the problem of your activity, of your works, and notably of your seminaries. You will appreciate, Brother, that in view of the past and present irregularities affecting these works, We cannot go back on the juridical suppression of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X.

What cruel irony! Has there ever been an instance in the History of the Church involving more irregularities, more disregard for the most elementary demands of justice than in the suppression of the Society of St. Pius X?

This has inculcated a spirit of opposition to the Council and to its implementation such as the Vicar of Christ was endeavoring to promote. Your Declaration of 21 November 1974 bears witness to this spirit; and upon such a foundation, as Our Commission of Cardinals rightly judged, on 6 May 1975, one cannot build an institution or a priestly formation in conformity with the requirements of the Church of Christ.

So once more the Declaration is the only evidence that can be cited against the Archbishop and the "spirit" of his Fraternity. Remember the origin of this Declaration, remember the manner in which the Cardinals conducted their inquiry, and then the case against the Archbishop can be evaluated at its true worth. As for the spirit that permeates certain "approved" seminaries, a young friend of mine, who is totally orthodox and a student at an English seminary, told me that when the Vatican issued its recent Declaration on Sexual Ethics it was not simply rejected but ridiculed by staff and students alike. He added that such is the unanimity among staff and students in their rejection of papal teaching that he sometimes has to fight off serious doubts as to whether they could be right and he could be wrong for accepting it.

This in no way invalidates the good element in your seminaries, but one must also take into consideration the ecclesiological deficiencies of which We have spoken and the capacity of exercising a pastoral ministry in the Church of today.

The ecclesiological difficulties cited consist of the Archbishop's Declaration! And now we have yet another neologism -the "Church of today." One fact to which any seminarian from Econe could testify is that wherever they go it is made abundantly clear to them that they are precisely what "the Church of today" wants -the Church, of course, being the faithful. The seminarians are approached wherever they go, on public transport, in the streets, by ordinary Catholics, who say to them, "How wonderful to see a real priest again!"

If by his reference to the "Church of today" the Holy Father is implying that the so-called "modern man" needs a new type of priest, then he has been effectively answered by Dietrich von Hildebrand, who has made it clear that this so-called "modem man" does not exist -he is a myth.

"As long as one only refers to the immense change in the external conditions of life brought about by the enormous technological development which has taken place, then one is referring to an indubitable fact. But this outward change has had no fundamental influence on man -on his essential nature, on the sources of his happiness, on the meaning of his life, on the metaphysical nature of man. And yet only some such fundamental change in man would have any bearing at all on his ability to understand the language in which the Church has been announcing the Gospel of Christ to mankind for thousands of years.

A knowledge of modern history and an unprejudiced view of it could not fail to convince anyone that the 'modern man’ who is radically different from the men of all other periods is a pure invention, or rather, a typical myth.9

Faced with these unfortunate mixed realities, We shall take care not to destroy but to correct and save as far as possible. This is why, as supreme guarantor of the faith and of the formation of the clergy, We require of you first of all to hand over to Us the responsibility of your work, and particularly for your seminaries. This is undoubtedly a heavy sacrifice for you, but it is also a test of your trust, of your obedience, and it is a necessary condition in order that these seminaries, which have no canonical existence in the Church, may in the future take their place therein.

The Archbishop is thus asked to hand over the responsibility for his work as a test of his trust. Cardinal Mindszenty had also been asked to put his trust in Pope Paul VI. We learn from his memoirs that he was given a solemn promise by the Pope's personal envoy that his "titles of archbishop and primate" would not be affected if he agreed to leave Hungary (p. 223). After he had arrived in Rome he was told by the Pope: "You are and remain Archbishop of Esztergom and primate of Hungary. Continue working, and if you have difficulties, always turn trustfully to Us" (p. 239). And then, "exactly on the twenty-fifth anniversary of my arrest, I was pained to receive a letter from the Holy Father dated 18 December 1973, in which His Holiness informed me with expressions of great appreciation and gratitude that he was declaring the archiepiscopal See of Esztergom vacant" (p. 246). The Cardinal begged Pope Paul to rescind this decision not because he desired to cling to office but to avoid sowing confusion in the minds of the Hungarian faithful. Despite this plea, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Cardinal's show trial the news of his removal from his see was published as if he had resigned voluntarily. He issued the following statement:

"A number of news agencies have transmitted the Vatican decision in such a way as to imply that Jozef Cardinal Mindszenty has voluntarily retired. ...In the interests of truth Cardinal Mindszenty has authorized his office to issue the following statement:

Cardinal Mindszenty has not abdicated his office as Archbishop nor his dignity as Primate of Hungary .The decision was taken by the Holy See alone" (p. 246).

It is only after you have accepted the principle, that We shall be able to provide in the best possible way for the good of all the persons involved, with the concern for promoting authentic priestly vocations and with respect for the doctrinal, disciplinary and pastoral requirements of the Church. At that stage We shall be in a position to listen with benevolence to your requests and your wishes, and, together with Our Departments, to take in conscience the right and opportune measures.

As for the illicitly ordained seminarians, the sanctions which they have incurred in conformity with Canons 985, 7 and 2374 can be lifted, if they give proof of a return to a better frame of mind, notably by accepting to subscribe to the Declaration which We have asked of you. We count upon your sense of the Church in order to make this easy for them.

This makes it clear that the formation given at Econe must be regarded as satisfactory if the only condition required to regularize the position of those ordained there is to a declaration.

As regards the foundations, houses of formation, "priories, " and various other institutions set up on your initiative or with your encouragement, We likewise ask you to hand them over to the Holy See, which will study their position, in its various aspects with the local episcopate. Their survival, organization, and apostolate will be subordinated, as is normal throughout the Catholic Church, to an agreement which will have to be reached, in each case, with the local bishop – nihil sine Episcopo-and in a spirit which respects the Declaration mentioned above.

This constitutes a straightforward demand that the assets of the Society of St. Pius X be handed over to the Vatican- and simply for protesting against this demand the Archbishop is accused of spreading "a distorted interpretation of the Pope’s intervention." The buildings belonging to the Society, and which constitute its assets, have been purchased with the contributions of tens of thousands of Catholics specifically because they wished their money to be used to preserve the traditional Church and not to finance the "Conciliar Church," the "Living Church," the "Church of today."

It would be an offense against justice to put buildings purchased with these donations at the service of the "Conciliar Church.”

All these points which figure in this letter, and to which We have given mature consideration,- in consultation with the Heads of Departments concerned, have been adopted by Us only out of regard for the greater good of the Church. You said to Us during our conversation of 11 September: "I am ready for anything, for the good of the Church." The response now lies in your hands.

If you refused-quod Deus avertat-to make the Declaration which is asked of you, you would remain suspended a divinis.' On the other hand, Our pardon and the lifting of the suspension will be assured you to the extent to which you sincerely and without ambiguity undertake to fulfil the conditions of this letter and to repair the scandal caused. The obedience and the trust of which you will give proof will also make it possible for Us to study serenely with you your personal problems.

May the Holy Spirit enlighten you and guide you towards the only solution that would enable you on the one hand to rediscover the peace of your momentarily misguided conscience but also to insure the good of souls, to contribute to the unity of the Church which the Lord has entrusted to Our charge, and to avoid the danger of a schism. In the psychological state in which you find yourself, We realize that it is difficult for you to see clearly and very hard for you humbly to change your line of conduct: is it not therefore urgent, as in all such cases, for you to arrange a time and place of recollection which will enable you to consider the matter with the necessary objectivity? Fraternally, We put you on your guard against the pressures to which you could be exposed from those who wish to keep you in an untenable position, while We Ourself, all your Brothers in the Episcopate, and the vast majority of the faithful await finally from you that ecclesial attitude which would be to your honor.

In order to root out the abuses which we all deplore and to guarantee a true spiritual renewal, as well as the courageous evangelization to which the Holy Spirit bids Us, there is needed more than ever the help and commitment of the entire ecclesial community around the Pope and the Bishops. Now the revolt of one side finally reaches and risks accentuating the insubordination of what you have called the “subversion” of the other side: while, without your own insubordination, you would have been able, Brother, as you expressed the wish in your last letter, to help Us, in fidelity and under Our authority, to work for the advancement of the Church.

Therefore, dear Brother, do not delay any longer in considering before God, with the keenest religious attention, this solemn adjuration of the humble but legitimate Successor of Peter. May you measure the gravity of the hour and take the only decision that befits a son of the Church. This is Our hope, this is Our prayer.

From the Vatican, 11 October 1976.

Paulus PP. VI.

Quote:To Our Brother in the episcopate Marcel Lefebvre,
formerly Archbishop-Bishop of Tulle.

Once more We address Ourselves directly to you, dear brother, after having prayed for a long time and asked Our Lord to inspire Us with words able to touch you. We do not understand your attitude. Can you have decided to attach no importance to the word of the Pope? Before rejecting the appeal of the Church, your Mother, have you at least taken time to reflect and pray?

As for Us, it seems that silence would have been becoming the day after your visit in September and after Our letter of 11 October. But We continue to hear of new initiatives which lead to a deepening of the ditch you are digging: the ordination on 31 October, your book,3 your declarations, your many journeys on which you take no account of local bishops.

This very day, therefore, We resolve, with regret, to authorize publication of Our last letter. God grant that knowledge of the exact text of that admonition may put an end to the calumnious interpretations of it that have been spread and may help the Christian people to see clearly and to strengthen its unity.

Quote:Conscious of the gravity of the moment We adjure you at the same time, with very special solemnity and insistence, to change the attitude which sets you in opposition to the Church, to return to the true Tradition and to full communion with Us.

From the Vatican, 29 November 1976.

Paulus PP. VI.
3 December 1976

Quote:Holy Father,

His Excellency, Monseigneur the Nuncio in Berne, has just delivered to me Your Holiness's last letter. Dare I say that every one of these letters is like a sword going through me, for I am so desirous of being in full accord with and full submission to the Vicar of Christ and the Successor of Peter, as I think I have been, the whole of my life.

But that submission can be made only in the unity of the faith and in the "true Tradition," as Y our Holiness says in your letter.

Tradition, being, according to the teaching of the Church, Christian doctrine defined for ever by the solemn Magisterium of the Church, it carries a character of immutability which obliges, to the assent of faith, not only the present generation but future generations as well. The sovereign pontiffs, the Councils, can make the deposit explicit, but they must transmit it faithfully and exactly, without changing it.

But how can the statements in the Declaration on Religious Liberty be reconciled with the teaching of the Council of Trent and with Tradition? How reconcile the working out of ecumenism with the Magisterium of the

Church and Canon Law concerning the relations of the Church with heretics, schismatics, atheists, unbelievers,

The new departures of the Church in these domains imply principles contrary to that “true Tradition” to which Your Holiness alludes, Tradition which is unchangeable because defined solemnly by the authority of your predecessors and preserved intact by all the successors of Peter.

To apple the notion of life to the Magisterium, to the Church, and also to tradition, does not allow of a minimizing of the concept of the immutability of defined faith, because faith in that case borrows its character of immutability from God Himself, immotus in se permaners while being the source of life, as are the Church and Tradition.

Saint Pius X in his encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis has clearly shown the danger of false interpretations of the terms “living faith,” “living tradition.”

It is this sad proof of the incompatibility of the principles of the new orientations with Tradition or the Magisterium that we come up against.

Could it, please, be explained to us how man can have a natural right to error? How can there be a natural right to cause scandal? How can the Protestants who took part in the liturgical reform state that the reform allows them from now on to celebrate the Eucharist according to the new Rite? How, then, is that reform compatible with the affirmations and the canons of the Council of Trent? And, finally, what are we to think of reception of the Eucharist by persons not of our faith, the lifting of excommunication from those belonging to sects and organizations which openly profess contempt for Our Lord Jesus Christ and our holy religion, that being contrary to the truth of the Church and to all Her Tradition?

Is there, since Vatican Council II, a new conception of the Church, of Her truth, of Her Sacrifice, of Her priesthood? It is on those points that we seek enlightenment. The faithful are beginning to be disturbed and to understand that it is no longer a question of details but of what constitutes their faith and therefore of the foundations of Christian civilization.

There, in brief, is our deep concern, compared with which the whole operation of the canonical or administrative system is nothing. As it is a question of our faith, it is a question of eternal life.

That said, I accept everything that, in the Council and the reforms, is in full conformity with Tradition; and the Society I have founded is ample proof of that. Our seminary is perfectly in accordance with the wishes expressed in the Council and in the Ratio fundamentalis of the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education.

Our apostolate corresponds fully with the desire for a better distribution of the clergy and with the concern expressed by the Council on the subject of the sanctification of clerics and their life in community.

The success of our seminaries with the young is clear proof that we are not incurably immobilized but are perfectly adapted to the needs of the apostolate of our times. That is why we beg Your Holiness to consider above all the great spiritual benefit that souls can draw from our priestly and missionary apostolate which, in collaboration with diocesan bishops, can bring about a true spiritual renewal.

To seek to force our Society into accepting a new orientation which is having disastrous effects on the whole Church is to compel it to disappear, like so many other seminaries.

Hoping that Your Holiness will understand, on reading these lines, that we have but one purpose, to serve Our Lord Jesus Christ, His glory and His Vicar, and to bring about the salvation of souls, we beg you to accept our respectful and filial wishes in Christ and Mary.

+ Marcel Lefebvre
Former Archbishop-Bishop of Tulle
on the Feast of St. Francis Xavier
3 December 1976.

Quote:What happened over 1600 years ago is repeating itself today, but with two or three differences: Alexandria is the whole Universal Church, the stability of which is being shaken, and what was undertaken at that time by means of physical force and cruelty is now being transferred to a different level. Exile is replaced by banishment into the silence of being ignored; killing, by assassination of character.

Mgr. Rudolf Graber, Bishop of Regensburg,
Athanasius and the Church of Our Times, p. 23.

Quote:...the inept, puerile, semi-literate English translation which has been foisted upon us by the ICEL - the International Commission for English in the Liturgy - a body of men possessed of all the worst characteristics of a self-perpetuating bureaucracy, which has done an immeasurable disservice to the entire English-speaking world. The work has been marked by an almost complete lack of literary sense, a crass insensitivity to the poetry of language, and even worse by a most unscholarly freedom in the rendering of the texts, amounting at times, to actual misrepresentation.1 (My emphasis.)

Quote:Arianism had admitted that Our Lord was both the God of the Evangelical Covenant, and the actual Creator of the Universe; but even this was not enough, because it did not confess Him to be the One, Everlasting, Infinite, Supreme Being, but as one who was made by the Supreme. It was not enough in accordance with that heresy to proclaim Him as having an ineffable origin before all worlds; not enough to place Him high above all creatures as the type of all the works of God's Hands; not enough to make Him the King of all Saints, the Intercessor for man with God, the Object of worship, the Image of the Father; not enough because it was not all, and between all and anything short of all, there was an infinite interval. The highest of creatures is levelled with the lowest in comparison of the One Creator Himself.2

Quote:No other word could be found to express the essential union between the Father and the Son, for every other word the Arians accepted, but in an equivocal sense. They would deny that the Son was a creature as other creatures - or in the number of creatures - or made in time, for they considered him a special creation made before time. They would call Him "Only-begotten," meaning "Only directly created" Son of God.3 They would call Him "Lord Creator," "First-born of all creation"; they even accepted "God of God" meaning thereby "made God by God." This word (homoousion) alone they could not say without renouncing their heresy.4

Quote:Men of worldly character, they disliked dogmatic precision and wished for some comprehensive formula which men of all opinions could sign while understanding it in widely diverging senses. To these men the precise and exact faith of an Athanasius and the obstinate heresy of Arius and his plain-spoken followers were equally distasteful.

"Respectable, tolerant, broadminded" would be their ideal of religion. They therefore brought forward, instead of the too definite, ineradicable homoousion - of one substance - the vaguer term homoiousion, i. e., of like substance. They sent letters far and wide couched in seemingly orthodox and fervent language, proclaiming their belief in Our Lord's divinity, ascribing to Him every divine prerogative, anathematizing all who said He was created in time:5 in short, saying all the most orthodox could ask, except that they substituted their own homoiousion for the homoousion of Nicea.6

Quote:...over-rigid precisians, more anxious about terminology than about fraternal charity.

Meanwhile these latter, foremost among them Athanasius, at first deacon and disciple of Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, and afterwards his successor, refused to modify in any way their attitude. Steadfastly they refused to accept any statement not containing the homoousion or to communicate with those who rejected it.7

Quote:On being informed of my pleasure, give free admission to all who are desirous of entering into communion with the Church. For if I learn of your standing in the way of any who were seeking it, or interdicting them, I will send at once those who shall depose you instead, by my authority, and banish you from your see.8

Quote:He appealed to Constantius to do justice to Athanasius. The imperial reply was to summon the bishops of Gaul to a council at Arles in 353-354, where, under threat of exile, they agreed to a condemnation of Athanasius. Even Liberius' legate yielded. When the Pope continued to press for a council more widely representative, it was assembled by Constantius at Milan in 355. It was threatened by a violent mob and the Emperor's personal intimidation: "My will," he exclaimed, "is canon law." He prevailed with all save three of the bishops. Athanasius was once more condemned and Arians admitted to communion. Once more papal legates surrendered and Liberius himself was ordered to sign. When he refused to do so, or even to accept the Emperor's offerings, he was seized and carried off to the imperial presence; when he stood firm for Athanasius' rehabilitation, he was exiled to Thrace (355) where he remained for two years. Meanwhile, a Roman deacon, Felix, was intruded into his see. The people refused to recognize the imperial anti-pope. Athanasius himself was driven into hiding and his flock abandoned to the persecution of an Arianizing intruder. When he visited Rome in 357, Constantius was besieged by clamorous demands for Liberius' restoration. Subservient bishops around the court at Sirmium subscribed in turn to doctrinal formulas more or less ambiguous or unorthodox. In 358, a formula drawn up by Basil of Ancyra, declaring that the Son was of like substance with the Father, homoiousion, was officially imposed.10

Quote:About this time Liberius began to sink under the hardships of his exile, and his resolution was shaken by the continual solicitations of Demophilus, the Arian Bishop of Beroea, and of Fortunatian, the temporizing Bishop of Aquileia. He was so far softened, by listening to flatteries and suggestions to which he ought to have stopped his ears with horror, that he yielded to the snare laid for him, to the great scandal of the Church. He subscribed to the condemnation of St. Athanasius and a confession or creed which had been framed by the Arians at Sirmium, though their heresy was not expressed in it; and he wrote to the Arian bishops of the East that he had received the true Catholic faith which many bishops had approved at Sirmium. The fall of so great a prelate and so illustrious a confessor is a terrifying example of human weakness, which no one can call to mind without trembling for himself. St. Peter fell by a presumptuous confidence in his own strength and resolution, that we may learn that everyone stands only by humility.11

Quote:Everything points to the fact that he [Liberius] accepted the first formula of Sirmium of 351...it failed gravely in deliberately avoiding the use of the most characteristic expression of the Nicene faith and in particular the homoousion. Thus while it cannot be said that Liberius taught false doctrine, it seems necessary to admit that, through weakness and fear, he did not do justice to the full truth.16

Quote:His fall, which followed, scandalous as it is in itself, may yet be taken to illustrate the silent firmness of those others of his fellow-sufferers, of whom we hear less, because they bore themselves more consistently.17

Quote:Liberius did not have the strength of character of his predecessor Julius I, or of his successor Damasus I. The troubles that erupted upon the latter's election indicate that the Roman Church had been weakened from within as well as from without during the pontificate of Liberius. His name was not inscribed in the Roman Martyrology.18

Quote:A. D. 360. St. Gregory Nazianzen says, about this date: "Surely the pastors have done foolishly; for, excepting a very few, who either on account of their insignificance were passed over, or who by reason of their virtue resisted, and who were to be left as a seed and root for the springing up again and revival of Israel by the influence of the Spirit, all temporized, only differing from each other in this, that some succumbed earlier, and others later; some were foremost champions and leaders in the impiety, and others joined the second rank of the battle, being overcome by fear, or by interest, or by flattery, or, what was the most excusable, by their own ignorance." (Orat. xxi. 24).

Cappadocia. St. Basil says, about the year 372: "Religious people keep silence, but every blaspheming tongue is let loose. Sacred things are profaned; those of the laity who are sound in faith avoid the places of worship as schools of impiety, and raise their hands in solitude, with groans and tears to the Lord in heaven." Ep. 92. Four years after he writes: "Matters have come to this pass: the people have left their houses of prayer, and assemble in deserts, - a pitiable sight; women and children, old men, and men otherwise infirm, wretchedly faring in the open air, amid most profuse rains and snow-storms and winds and frosts of winter; and again in summer under a scorching sun. To this they submit, because they will have no part in the wicked Arian leaven." Ep. 242. Again: "Only one offense is now vigorously punished, - an accurate observance of our fathers' traditions. For this cause the pious are driven from their countries, and transported into deserts." Ep. 243.

Quote:It is not a little remarkable, that, though historically speaking, the fourth century is the age of doctors, illustrated, as it is, by the Saints Athanasius, Hilary, the two Gregories, Basil, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine (and all those saints [were] bishops also, except one), nevertheless in that very day the Divine tradition committed to the infallible Church was proclaimed and maintained far more by the faithful than by the episcopate.

Here, of course, I must explain: - in saying this then, undoubtedly I am not denying that the great body of the Bishops were in their internal belief orthodox; nor that there were numbers of clergy who stood by the laity and acted as their centres and guides; nor that the laity actually received the faith in the first instance from the Bishops and clergy: nor that some portions of the laity were ignorant and other portions were at length corrupted by the Arian teachers, who got possession of the sees, and ordained an heretical clergy: - but I mean still, that in that time of immense confusion the divine dogma of Our Lord's divinity was proclaimed, enforced, maintained, and (humanly speaking) preserved, far more by the Ecclesia docta than by the Ecclesia docens; that the body of the Episcopate20 was unfaithful to its commission, while the body of the laity was faithful to its baptism; that at one time the Pope, at other times a patriarchal, metropolitan, or other great sees, at other times general councils21 said what they should not have said, or did what obscured and compromised revealed truth; while, on the other hand, it was the Christian people, who, under Providence, were the ecclesiastical strength of Athanasius, Eusebius of Vercellae, and other great solitary confessors, who would have failed without them....

On the one hand, then, I say, that there was a temporary suspense of the functions of the Ecclesia docens.22 The body of bishops failed in their confession of the faith.

Quote:I see, then, in the Arian history, a palmary example of a state of the Church, during which, in order to know the tradition of the Apostles, we must have recourse to the faithful; for I fairly own, that if I go to writers, since I must adjust the letter of Justin, Clement, and Hippolytus with the Nicene Doctors, I get confused: and what revives me and reinstates me, as far as history goes, is the faith of the people. For I argue that, unless they had been catechized, as St. Hilary says, in the orthodox faith from the time of their baptism, they never could have had that horror, which they show, of the heterodox Arian doctrine. Their voice, then, is the voice of tradition....

Quote:The heresy long ago disseminated by that enemy of truth, Arius, grew to a shameless height and like a bitter root it is bearing its pernicious fruit and already gaining the upper hand since the standard-bearers of the true doctrine have been driven form the churches by defamation and insult and the authority they were vested with has been handed over to such as captivate the hearts of the simple in mind.23

Quote:The Church has not just recently been given order and statutes. They were faithfully and soundly bestowed on it by the Fathers. Nor has the faith only just been established, but it has come to us from the Lord through His disciples. May what has been preserved in the Churches from the beginning to the present day not be abandoned in our time; may what has been entrusted into our keeping not be embezzled by us. Brethren, as custodians of God’s mysteries, let yourselves be roused into action on seeing all this despoiled by others.24

Quote:The pastoral charge does not consist merely in administering the sacraments, saying the canonical hours, celebrating Masses, but in the truthful teaching of the living truth, in the awe-inspiring condemnation of vice and severe punishment of it when necessary. It consists also in feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, covering the naked, receiving guests, visiting the sick and those in prison, especially those who belong to the parish, who have a claim upon the endowments of their church. By the doing of these things is the people to be taught the holy duties of the active life.9

Quote:For this reason after the pattern of the ordinance made in the Old Testament, the Lord Pope has the fullness of power over the nations and over kingdoms, to root up and to pull down, and to waste and destroy, and to build and to plant....Samuel was like the sun of the people, among the people of Israel, just as the lord Pope is in the universal Church and every bishop in his diocese.12

Quote:The Vicar of Christ was the lynch pin upon which the whole fabric of the Church depended; but he was the Vicar of Christ and woe betide if he fell short of his awful responsibilities. Orthodox minds were more outspoken then they were in post-Tridentine days in their criticism of papal behavior.13

Quote:But God forbid, God forbid that this most Holy See and those who preside in it, who are commonly to be obeyed in all their commands, by commanding anything contrary to Christ's precepts and will, should be the cause of a falling away. God forbid that to any who are truly united to Christ, not willing to go in any way against His will, this See and those who preside in it should be a cause of falling away or apparent schism, by commanding such men to do what is opposed to Christ's will.14

Quote:...no hesitation in rejecting presentations to benefices, if those who were presented lacked the qualifications which he considered necessary for the cure of souls, whoever were the patrons, whether laymen, friends of his own, monastic bodies, or even in the last resort, as time went on, the Pope himself.20

Quote:He stood up alone, attended by nobody but his official Robert Marsh....Pope Innocent IV sat there with his cardinals and the members of his household to hear the most thorough and vehement attack that any great Pope can ever have heard at the height of his power.23

Quote:The pastoral office is straitened. And the source of the evil is to be found in the papal Curia, not merely in its indifference but in its dispensations and provisions of the pastoral care. It provides bad shepherds for the flock. What is the pastoral office? Its duties are numerous, and in particular include the duty of visitation....24

Quote:In his attitude to the papacy Grosseteste was at once loyal and critical. It was just because he believed so passionately in the papal power that he hated to see it misused....If there had been more loyal and disinterested critics like Grosseteste, it would have been better for all concerned.26

Quote:No faithful subject of the Holy See, no man who is not cut away by schism from the Body of Christ and the same Holy See, can submit to mandates, precepts, or any other demonstrations of this kind, no, not even if the authors were the most high body of angels. He must needs repudiate them and rebel against them with all his strength. Because of the obedience by which I am bound, and of my love of my union with the Holy See in the Body of Christ, as an obedient son I disobey, I contradict, I rebel. You cannot take action against me, for my every word and act is not rebellion but the filial honor due by God's command to father and mother. As I have said, the Apostolic See in its holiness cannot destroy, it can only build. This is what the plentitude of power means; it can do all things to edification. But these so-called provisions do not build up, they destroy. They cannot be the works of the blessed Apostolic See, for "flesh and blood," which do not possess the Kingdom of God "hath revealed them," not "our Father which is in heaven."27

Quote:There seem to be two lines of argument here. The first is that since the plenitudo potestatis exists for the purpose of edification and not destruction, any act which tends to the destruction or the ruin of souls cannot be a genuine exercise of the plenitudo potestatis....The second line of argument is that if the Pope, or anyone else, should command anything contrary to Divine Law, then it will be wrong to obey, and in the last resort, while protesting one's loyalty, one must refuse to obey. The fundamental problem was that while the Church's teaching is supernaturally guaranteed against error, the Church's ministers, from the Pope downwards, are not impeccable, and are capable of making wrong judgements or giving wrong commands.28

Quote:"You must do nothing. It is true. We cannot condemn him. He is a Catholic and a holy man, a better man that we are. He has not got his equal among the prelates. All the French and English clergy know this and our contradiction would be of no avail. The truth of this letter which is probably known to many, might move many against us. He is esteemed as a great philosopher, learned in Greek and Latin literature, zealous for justice, a reader in the schools of theology, a preacher to the people, an active enemy of abuses."29

Quote:He knew everybody and feared nobody. At King Henry's request he instructed him on the nature of an anointed king, and in so doing courteously reminded him of his responsibility for the maintenance of his subjects in peace and justice and of his duty to refrain from any interference with the cure of souls. He would allow no compromise on matters of principle. The common law of the land should be applied in the light of equity, the dictate of conscience, and the teaching of the natural law, as revealed in the Scriptures, implicit in the working of a Divine Providence, and conformable to the teaching and guidance of Christ in the Church Militant on earth.30

Quote:On Christmas Day, 428, Nestorius (Patriarch of Constantinople), profiting from the immense crowd assembled to celebrate the birth of the Divine Child to Our Lady uttered this blasphemy from his episcopal throne: "Mary did not give birth to God; her son was only a man, the instrument of God."

At these words a tremor of horror passed through the multitude. The general indignation was voiced by Eusebius, a layman, who stood up in the crowd and protested. Soon a more detailed protest was drafted in the name of the members of the abandoned Church, and numerous copies spread far and wide, declaring anathema on whoever should dare to say that He Who was born of the Virgin Mary was other than the only begotten Son of God. This attitude not only safeguarded the Faith of the Eastern Church, but was praised alike by Popes and Councils. When the shepherd turns into a wolf the first duty of the flock is to defend itself. As a general rule, doctrine comes from the bishops to the faithful, and it is not for the faithful, who are subjects in the order of Faith, to pass judgment on their superiors. But every Christian, by virtue of his title to the name Christian, has not only the necessary knowledge of the essentials of the treasure of Revelation, but also the duty of safeguarding them. The principle is the same, whether it is a matter of belief or conduct, that is of dogma or morals. Treachery such as that of Nestorius is rare in the Church; but it can happen that, for one reason or another, pastors remain silent on essential matters of faith.

Quote:They either close their eyes and try, ostrich-style, to ignore the grievous abuses as well as appeals to their duty to intervene, or they fear to be attacked by the press or the mass-media and defamed as reactionary, narrow-minded, or medieval. They fear men more than God. The words of St. John Bosco apply to them: "The power of evil men lives on in the cowardice of the good."...One is forced to think of the hireling who abandons his flocks to the wolves when one reflects on the lethargy of so many bishops and superiors who, though still orthodox themselves, do not have the courage to intervene against the most flagrant heresies and abuses of all kinds in their dioceses or in their orders.4

Quote:Should the faithful at the time of the Arian heresy, for instance, in which the majority of the bishops were Arians, have limited themselves to being nice and obedient to the ordinances of these bishops, instead of battling heresy? Is not fidelity to the true teaching of the Church to be given priority over submission to the bishop? Is it not precisely by virtue of their obedience to the revealed truths which they received from the Magisterium of the Church, that the faithful offer resistance?...

The drivel of the heretics, both priests and laymen, is tolerated; the bishops tacitly acquiesce to the poisoning of the faithful. But they want to silence the faithful believers who take up the cause of orthodoxy, the very people who should by all rights be the joy of the bishops' hearts, their consolation, a source of strength for overcoming their own lethargy. Instead, these people are regarded as disturbers of the peace.5

Quote:For them it is as if the person of the Pope were, as such, infallible, and as if all his words, all his directives, all his judgments in all matters, even those foreign to religion, could never be subject to error, though the whole history of the Church protests against that conviction which is close to idolatry.

There have been Popes whose doctrine was near-heresy, Honorius and Liberius for example. There were others whose faith, hope and charity could hardly be perceived behind the disorders of their conduct. And there were some whose faults, stupidity, blunders, extravagances, and weaknesses in the government and administration of the Church were such that the divine organism entrusted to their care was more than once shaken. It is enough to read the twenty or so volumes of Ludwig von Pastor's History of the Popes to be convinced of that.

Quote:His knowledge and prudence were insufficient for his task of governing the Church, and he was a weak man who blustered and yielded. Within a few days of consecration he conferred on Patroclus, Bishop of Aries, a usurper of the see, unscrupulous in his methods, what amounted to legatine authority over all the bishops of southern Gaul, and reprimanded them harshly when they defended their rights....Zosimus ordered the rehabilitation of an African priest, Apiarius, degraded by his bishop for his immoral life.

Quote:...certainly took the papacy by force, but he is customarily regarded as a legitimate pope. Legitimate he may have been but suitable he certainly was not....This unscrupulous man who ruled the Church so arrogantly held a Roman Council which overturned the acts of the Council of 898....the execration of some undoubted popes by this terrible man, were enough to cause scandal. Many of the better men of the day resisted and a bitter conflict arose.

Quote:...increased the taxation of the Church and sold provisions and expectatives for ready cash. Indulgences were multiplied, to be gained by an offering of money with little regard paid to the essential spiritual conditions. In the year 1400 the Pope proclaimed a Holy Year and allowed would-be pilgrims to the shrines of Rome to forego the arduous journey for a sum roughly equivalent to what they would otherwise have spent. The bankers of Europe were called in to collect the offerings which they divided equally with the Pope. There can be little doubt that Boniface IX, who treated the whole business simply as a political problem, was guilty of simony on a massive scale.

Quote:...a kindly and genial man [but] he lacked the personality and intellectual capacity for the office of pope. His morals were equally unsuitable, and he openly avowed his illegitimate children....To the open scandals caused by the pope's morals and policies - the advancement of his bastard Franceschotto, and his collaboration with the heathen - were added the results of corruption in the Curia. Administrative incompetence and the expenses of foreign policy in the early years of his pontificate led both to an increase in the sale of offices and to the creation of new posts in order that they might be sold. The number of papal secretaries was increased to twenty-six and the new posts sold for 62,400 ducats, while fifty-two Plumbatores were appointed to seal bulls, each of whom paid 2,500 ducats for his appointment.

Quote:The circumstances of the time were favorable to Pastor. The nineteenth century had seen an unprecedented development of the historical sciences, and nowhere was this development more remarkable than in Germany, where Pastor was trained. Immense stores of authentic materials were made available to historians, and the publication of manuscripts and documents, of the fruits of individual and collective research, of historical monographs of every kind and of reviews which gave expression to the findings and opinions of every school of thought increased on all sides. Leo XIII gave further impetus to this movement when in 1883 he opened to historians the incomparable riches of the Vatican archives.

Pope Leo performed an even greater service by his letter on the study of history, in which he declared that the Church has nothing to fear from the truth and desires only that the truth be known. He reaffirmed the norms by which all sound historical scholarship must be guided; the first law of history is, "Never tell a lie," and the second, "Do not fear to tell the truth." It is understandable, though deplorable, that many who observe the first cannot bring themselves to fulfill the second. From this selective obedience arises the grave abuse by which history, maimed and distorted, is made the unprofitable servant of unsound apologetics. Cardinal Newman remarked that the endemic fidget about giving scandal is itself the greatest of scandals, and we may paraphrase his famous comment on literature by saying that we may expect a sinless history only from a sinless people.

Pastor's freedom from the criminal trait of accommodating his matter is an imperishable glory for Catholic historical readership and is surely not the least of the reasons for the esteem in which his work is held by Catholic and non-Catholic scholars alike.

Quote:One must have a very weak faith to be upset by this human side of the Church. One can, indeed, suffer in one's feelings; but the solidity, the Amen, of our response to the action of God in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church should never be damaged by it: God writes straight with crooked lines, says the Portugese proverb, He always draws good from evil; and we know from Scripture that the time of universal apostasy will be followed by the glory of eternity.

The epidemic of the kind of deification of the Pope which is raging, in different degrees, in Catholic souls, and which inclines them, again in different degrees, to an absolute obedience to his injunctions in any domain whatsoever, is relatively recent. The Middle Ages, for example, knew nothing of it. It certainly cannot be said that that period, the most brilliant in the history of Christianity, ever cast doubt on the spiritual primacy of the papacy in the order of faith. The struggles between the Empire and Rome, however violent they were, respected the fundamental principle of the Catholic faith. When Dante, with a sort of ferocity, put Boniface VIII, the Pope gloriously reigning at the time he wrote, into the abysses of Hell, in company with some of his predecessors, he did not, like Luther, condemn to a shameful execution the Papacy itself as the principal organ of the Church.

Quote:We teach and declare that, in the disposition of God, the Roman Church holds the pre-eminence of ordinary power over all the other churches; and that this power of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, which is truly episcopal, is immediate. Regarding this jurisdiction, the shepherds of whatever rite and dignity and the faithful, individually and collectively, are bound by a duty of hierarchical subjection and of sincere obedience; and this not only in matters that pertain to faith and morals, but also in matters that pertain to the discipline and government of the Church throughout the whole world. When, therefore, this bond of unity with the Roman Pontiff is guarded both in government and in the profession of the same faith, then the Church of Christ is one flock under one supreme shepherd. This is the doctrine of Catholic truth; and no one can deviate from this without losing his faith and his salvation.10

Quote:Absolutism is the principle of Ulpian in the Roman law, that the mere will of the prince is law. But who has ever said that the Roman Pontiff should govern the Church according to his sweet will, by his nod, by arbitrary power, by fancy, that is without the laws and canons? We all exclude mere arbitrary power; but we all assert full and pedect power. Is power arbitrary because it is supreme? Are civil governments arbitrary because they are supreme? Or a General Council confirmed by the Pope? Let all this confusion of ideas go! Let the genuine doctrine of the schema12 be accepted in its true, proper, genuine sense, without preposterous interpretations.13

Quote:As I have said, the Apostolic See in its holiness cannot destroy, it can only build. This is what the plentitude of power means; it can do all things to edification. But these so-called provisions do not build up, they destroy (see p. 389).

Quote:Therefore Peter has as much power as the Lord has given to him, not for the destruction, but for the building up of the Body of Christ that is the Church.15

Quote:Thus, were he to wish to distribute the Church’s wealth, or Peter’s Patrimony among his own relatives; were he to wish to destroy the Church or to commit an act of similar magnitude, there would be a duty to prevent him, and likewise an obligation to oppose him and resist him. The reason being that he does not possess power in order to destroy, and thus it follows that if he is doing so it is lawful to oppose him.

Quote:Next, I observe that, conscience being a practical dictate, a collision is possible between it and the Pope’s authority only when the Pope legislates, or give particular orders, and the like. But a pope is not infallible in his laws, nor in his commands, nor in his acts of State, nor in his administration, nor in his public policy.16

Quote:If in a particular case it (conscience) is to be taken as a sacred and sovereign monitor, its dictate, in order to prevail against the voice of the Pope, must follow upon serious thought, prayer, and all available means of arriving at a right judgment on the matter in question. And further, obedience to the Pope is what is called "in possession”; that is, the onus probandi of establishing a case against him lies, as in all cases of exception, on the side of conscience. Unless a man is able to say to himself, as in the Presence of God, that he must not, and dare not, act upon the Papal injunction, he is bound to obey it, and would commit a great sin in disobeying it. Prima facie it is his bounden duty, even from a sentiment of loyalty, to believe the Pope right and to act accordingly.17

Quote:The word "Superior" certainly includes the Pope; Cardinal Jacobatius brings out this point clearly in his authoritative work on Councils, which is contained in Labbe's collection, introducing the Pope by name: "If it were doubtful," he says, "whether a precept (of the Pope) be a sin or not, we must determine thus: that, if he to whom the precept is addressed has a conscientious sense that it is a sin and injustice, first it is his duty to put off that sense; but, if he cannot, nor conform himself to the judgment of the Pope, in that case it is his duty to follow his own private conscience, and patiently to bear it if the Pope punishes him." - lib. iv. p. 241.19

Quote:Certainly, if I am obliged to bring religion into after-dinner toasts (which indeed does not seem quite the thing) I shall drink -to the Pope, if you please, - still, to Conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards.20

Quote:Take the case of a pope's deposing a competent and pious bishop without any objective reason, merely in order to promote one of his relatives to the post. It could hardly be proved that such a deposition is legally invalid. There is no court of appeal before which the Pope and his measure could be cited. The Pope alone has the competence of competence, that is, he alone judges in the last juridical instance on earth whether in a given act he has observed those norms by which in his own view that act is to be judged. But for all the unassailable legal validity of such a measure, such a deposition would be immoral and an actual offense against the divine right of the episcopate, though not an offense extending to the proper sphere of doctrine.

Quote:The Pope is circumscribed by the consciousness of the necessity of making a righteous and beneficent use of the duties attached to his privileges....He is also circumscribed by the respect due to General Councils and to ancient statutes and customs, by the rights of bishops, by his relation with civil powers, by the traditional mild tone of government indicated by the aim of the institution of the papacy - to "feed" - and finally by the respect indispensable in a spiritual power towards the spirit and mind of nations.21

Quote:The Pope can separate himself without reason purely by his wilfulness from the body of the Church and from the college of priests by not observing what the universal Church by apostolic tradition observes...or by non-observance of what was ordered universally by the universal councils or by the Apostolic See, especially in respect to the divine cult if he does not want to observe what concerns the universal rite of the Church's worship.23

Quote:The Pope can be a schismatic if he does not want to have union and bond with the whole body of the Church, as he should, if he attempts to excommunicate the whole Church, or if he wants to abolish all ecclesiastical ceremonies, which are confirmed by apostolic tradition as Cajetan remarks.24

Quote:Imagine that the Pope, as supreme pastor of the Church, issued a decree today requiring all the uniate churches of the Near East to give up their Oriental liturgy and adopt the Latin rite....The Pope would not exceed the competence of his jurisdictional primacy by such a decree, but the decree would be legally valid.

But we can also pose an entirely different question. Would it be morally licit for the Pope to issue such a decree? Any reasonable man and any true Christian would have to answer "no." Any confessor of the Pope would have to tell him that in the concrete situation of the Church today such a decree, despite its legal validity, would be subjectively and objectively an extremely grave moral offense against charity, against the unity of the Church rightly understood (which does not demand uniformity), against possible reunion of the Orthodox with the Roman Catholic Church, etc., a mortal sin from which the Pope could be absolved only if he revoked the decree.

From this example one can readily gather the heart of the matter. It can, of course, be worked out more fundamentally and abstractly in a theological demonstration:

1. The exercise of papal jurisdictional primacy remains even when it is legal, subject to moral norms, which are not necessarily satisfied merely because a given act of jurisdiction is legal. Even an act of jurisdiction which legally binds its subjects can offend against moral principles.

2. To point out and protest against the possible infringement against moral norms of an act which must respect these norms is not to deny or question the legal competence of the man possessing the jurisdiction.25 26

Quote:Victor bade the Asiatic Churches conform to the custom of the rest of the Church, but was met with determined resistance by Polycrates of Ephesus, who claimed that their custom derived from St. John himself. Victor replied with excommunication. St. Irenaeus, however, intervened, exhorting Victor not to cut off whole Churches on account of a point which was not a matter of faith. He assumes that the Pope can exercise the power but urges him not to do so. Similarly the resistance of the Asiatic bishops involved no denial of the supremacy of Rome. It indicates solely that the bishops believed St. Victor to be abusing his power in bidding them renounce a custom for which they had apostolic authority....Saint Victor, seeing that more harm than good would come from insistence, withdrew the imposed penalty.28

Quote:Sixtus V, though unskilled in this branch of criticism, had introduced alterations of his own, all for the worse. He had even gone so far as to have an impression of this vitiated edition printed and partially distributed, together with the proposed Bull enforcing its use. He died, however, before the actual promulgation and his immediate successors at once proceeded to remove the blunders and call in the defective impression.32

Quote:If the Faith be in imminent peril, prelates ought to be accused by their subjects, even in public. Thus, St. Paul, who was the subject of St. Peter, called him to task in public because of the impending danger of scandal concerning a point of Faith. As the Glossary to St. Augustine puts it: "St. Peter himself set an example for those who rule, to the effect that if they ever stray from the straight path they are not to feel that anyone is unworthy of correcting them, even if such a person be one of their subjects."34

Quote:If [the Pope] lays down an order contrary to right customs one does not have to obey him; if he tries to do something manifestly opposed to justice and to the common good, it would be licit to resist him; if he attacks by force, he could be repelled by force, with the moderation characteristic of a good defense.35

Quote:Just as it is licit to resist the Pontiff who attacks the body, so also is it licit to resist him who attacks souls or destroys the civil order, or above all tries to destroy the Church. I say that it is licit to resist him by not doing what he orders and by impeding the execution of his will; it is not licit, however, to judge him, to punish him, or depose him, for these are acts proper to a superior.37