Letters to Friends and Benefactors - March 1978

[Stone]

Archbishop Lefebvre

Letters to Friends and Benefactors

The Feast of Saint Joseph, 1978

Dear Friends and Benefactors:

Providence has allowed this painful crisis in the Church for our sanctification and in order to give more brightness to the pure gold of its doctrine and its means of redemption. This passion of the Church is a great mystery, for it reaches chiefly its hierarchy, its scholars, who seem to no longer know who they are and the reasons of their being appointed.

Satan, the father of lies, as Our Lord Jesus calls him, has the extraordinary talent of finding out some words, to which he assigns a new meaning so that from their ambiguity, he achieves acceptance of the destructive falsehood which overthrows the best established societies. He found it in this “ecumenism” of the Council which has created an ecumenical liturgy, an ecumenical Bible, and ecumenical catechism, uniting truth and falsehood – marrying the true and the false.

The most disastrous result of this marriage is the Catholic-Protestant Mass, the poisoned source afterwards yielding countless ravages: relinquishment of the Church, of the true Faith, sacrileges, tearing of the unity of the Church, proliferation of diverse sorts of creeds unworthy of the Church.

But, there exists a consequence of which one does not often enough ponder on. It is the destruction of the Catholic nations which no longer find in the Holy Mass, the source of political unity based on the unity of the Catholic Faith. Therefore, the Catholic nation hereafter must, in like manner, convert itself to an ecumenical state – pluralistic, very soon finding itself securalized and neutral, if not atheistic.

The ecumencial Mass leads logically to apostasy. One cannot serve two masters, one cannot nourish oneself indifferently from truth or falsehood. It is falsehood that flatters our evil inclinations which will prevail over truth which is more austere and more demanding.

One must, at all costs, remain bound to truth without mingling. Pope Pius IX vigorously denounced these liberal Catholics who believe they can unite falsehood and truth, good and evil, in order to please their contemporary fellowmen.

Whether this poisoned ecumenism reaches us through the hierarchy or not, the channel is not important – it is the poison that one must refuse to swallow. It is a matter of strict obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ, to the Church of all times, to all the successors of Peter. We will, therefore, keep the Catholic liturgy, the Catholic Bible and catechism.

And it is for this reason that we must have Catholic priests and Catholic seminarians, Catholic monks nuns, active and contemplative. The Catholic Church will not perish!

Each one, at his time in the Church, must endeavour to remain Catholic and to maintain the Catholic Church. It is upon this resolution and its realisation that we will be judged by Our Divine Lord.

Dear friends and benefactors, we owe to your prayers and to your generosity, that we have been able to achieve the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X with its 40 priests (soon to be 56), its three seminaries including 150 seminarians, its brothers, its nuns and its oblates.

We are about to acquire the buildings required for our American and German seminaries. We hope to establish a college-seminary in Germany and one in France, a home for spiritual exercises in Northern Italy, the beginning of a great seminary in Argentina as well as a priory in Madrid.

Besides, the numerous vocations for the Carmel oblige us to provide help to the Carmel Foundation and soon to the Cistercian Monastery. Contemplative homes are necessary for the holiness of the Church. They will remain so inasmuch as they preserve their holy traditions.

You can address your correspondence to these foundations: for the Carmelites, to the Maison St. Pie X de Suresnes, and for the Cistercians, to Notre Dame du Pointet. The complete addresses are indicated below. Through this listing, you can realise our needs. We pray, during this month of March, our great patron St. Joseph that he create new benefactors, and we thank him for his paternal concern toward us. We have no debts and we do not capitalise. What is given to us serves without delay to the edification of the Church and to its real renovation.

We wish for our homes to be centres of fervour, of piety, of fraternal welcome, chiefly for the priests who wish to share the spiritual life and the apostolate of our priests. We also gladly welcome vocations of brothers who are auxilaries of our priests and lay associates who unite their prayers and works to the members of the Society. Like future priests, they may contact superiors of districts and priories who will introduce them to the houses of formation.

In this world, which ignores its Saviour and Master Jesus Christ, it is more than ever necessary that generous souls make themselves His heralds through speech, example and practice. Each destroyed altar, each closing parish or chapel, means a victory for the devil and results in lost souls. Let your prayers and sacrifices intervene with Our Lord Jesus through the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin. Let them not cease but increase the preaching of Jesus Christ Crucified.

May God bless you.


†Marcel Lefebvre

Source

[Emphasis - The Catacombs]