Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre - Volume III

[Stone]

Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre
Volume 3, Chapter LXI

Rastafarianism
"Rastafarianism A Valid Religious Experience"
The Daily Telegraph 19 January 1982

The Daily Telegraph of 19 January 1982 carried a report on a document published by the Catholic Commission for Racial justice.

The President of the Commission is Bishop Leo McCartie of Birmingham. This Commission has recommended that Catholics should allow their premises to be used by Rastafarians, who smoke cannabis as part of their religious ritual. This bizarre sect is spurned by the overwhelming majority of West Indians. Its members wear their hair in "dreadlocks" (it cannot be washed or cut). They wear woolly hats. They worship the late Emperor of Ethiopia. They believe that Jesus was black and have a great veneration for the late Duke of Gloucester.

At a news conference in London, Bishop McCartie explained that:

"For instance, Rastafarians often lack places to meet; and Christian churches could consider allowing Rastafarians use of their premises... While we accept that Rastafarianism is a valid religious experience and way of life, there are obviously things in it which are not acceptable at the moment in this country, because of the law," the Bishop said.

Bishop McCartie, in reply to another question, agreed that Rastafarians looked on cannabis smoking in their ritual as an equivalent to the Christian Communion Service.

The question of cannabis posed a dilemma, the Bishop said. The Catholic Church did not condemn the smoking of cannabis as sinful as it did not condemn the use of alcohol or smoking cigarettes.

Note that the Bishop has no objection to Rastafarianism on the grounds that it is a false religion; the only problem is a conflict with the law as it now stands! I wonder whether, if it were pointed out to him that traditional Catholics often lack places to meet, he would consider allowing us to use Catholic premises? Somehow I doubt it. I doubt whether he would extend his tolerance to us, even if we stopped washing our hair and wore woolly hats.

In his last book, the French philosopher Jacques Maritain spoke scathingly of the many Catholics today who "kneel before the world." He was referring to their tendency to ape the attitudes and mouth the platitudes espoused by the contemporary Liberal establishment in the hope of appearing "relevant." The enthusiasm of so many American bishops for unilateral disarmament is a case in point. I am sure that Bishop McCartie imagined that his advocacy of the Rastafarian cause would bring many an approving headline and laudatory editorial in the secular media. I was encouraged to see that what comment there was in the secular media treated his statement in a derisory fashion.

It should also be noted that Catholic West Indians would find the statement of the English Bishops' Commission unspeakably offensive. Where they are concerned, the worst fate that can befall any of their children is to abandon the true Faith to join the Rastafarian cult.

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Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre
Volume 3, Chapter LXII

Fasting and Abstinence
14 February 1982

My dear brethren,

According to an ancient and salutary tradition in the Church, on the occasion of the beginning of Lent, I address these words to you in order to encourage you to enter into this penitential season wholeheartedly, with the dispositions willed by the Church and to accomplish the purpose for which the Church prescribes it.

If I look in books from the early part of this century, I find that they indicate three purposes for which the Church has prescribed this penitential time:

• first, in order to curb the concupiscence of the flesh;
  
• then, to facilitate the elevation of our souls toward divine realities;
  
• finally, to make satisfaction for our sins.
  

Our Lord gave us the example during His life, here on earth: pray and do penance. However, Our Lord, being free from concupiscence and sin, did penance and made satisfaction for our sins, thus showing us that our penance may be beneficial not only for ourselves but also for others.

Pray and do penance. Do penance in order to pray better, in order to draw closer to Almighty God. This is what all the saints have done, and this is that of which all the messages of the Blessed Virgin remind us.

Would we dare to say that this necessity is less important in our day and age than in former times? On the contrary, we can and we must affirm that today, more than ever before, prayer and penance are necessary because everything possible has been done to diminish and denigrate these two fundamental elements of Christian life.

Never before has the world sought to satisfy - without any limit, the disordered instincts of the flesh, even to the point of the murder of millions of innocent, unborn children. One would come to believe that society has no other reason for existence except to give the greatest material standard of living to all men in order that they should not be deprived of material goods.

Thus we can see that such a society would be opposed to what the Church prescribes. In these times, when even Churchmen align themselves with the spirit of this world, we witness the disappearance of prayer and penance-particularly in their character of reparation for sins and obtaining pardon for faults. Few there are today who love to recite Psalm 50, the Miserere, and who say with the psalmist, Peccatum meum contra me est semper-"My sin is always before me." How can a Christian remove the thought of sin if the image of the crucifix is always before his eyes?

At the Council the bishops requested such a diminution of fast and abstinence that the prescriptions have practically disappeared. We must recognize the fact that this disappearance is a consequence of the ecumenical and Protestant spirit which denies the necessity of our participation for the application of the merits of Our Lord to each one of us for the remission of our sins and the restoration of our divine affiliation [i.e., our character as adoptive sons of God].

In the past the commandments of the Church provided for:

• an obligatory fast on all days of Lent with the exception of Sundays, for the three ember days and for many vigils;
  
• abstinence was for all Fridays of the year, the Saturdays of Lent and, in numerous dioceses, all the Saturdays of the year.
  

What remains of these prescriptions-the fast for Ash Wednesday and Good Friday and abstinence for Ash Wednesday and the Fridays of Lent.

One wonders at the motives for such a drastic diminution. Who are obliged to observe the fast? -adults from age 21 to 60. And who are obliged to observe abstinence? -all the faithful from the age of 7 years.

What does fasting mean? To fast means to take only one (full) meal a day to which one may add two collations (or small meals), one in the morning, one in the evening which, when combined, do not equal a full meal.

What is meant by abstinence? By abstinence is meant that one abstains from meat.

The faithful who have a true spirit of faith and who profoundly understand the motives of the church which have been mentioned above, will wholeheartedly accomplish not only the light prescriptions of today but, entering into the spirit of Our Lord and of the Blessed Virgin Mary, will endeavor to make reparation for the sins which they have committed and for the sins of their family, their neighbors, friends and fellow citizens.

It is for this reason that they will add to the actual prescriptions. These additional penances might be to fast for all Fridays of Lent, abstinence from all alcoholic beverages, abstinence from television, or other similar sacrifices. They will make an effort to pray more, to assist more frequently at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, to recite the Rosary, and not to miss evening prayers with the family. They will detach themselves from their superfluous material goods in order to aid the seminaries, help establish schools, help their priests adequately furnish the chapels and to help establish novitiates for nuns and brothers.

The prescriptions of the Church do not concern fast and abstinence alone but the obligation of the Paschal Communion (Easter Duty) as well. Here is what the Vicar of the Diocese of Sion, in Switzerland, recommended to the faithful of that diocese on 20 February 1919:

1. During Lent, the pastors will have the Stations of the Cross twice a week; one day for the children of the schools and another day for the other parishioners. After the Stations of the Cross, they will recite the Litany of the Sacred Heart.

2. During Passion Week, which is to say, the week before Palm Sunday, there will be a Triduum in all parish churches, Instruction, Litany of the Sacred Heart in the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament, Benediction. In these instructions the pastors will simply and clearly remind their parishioners of the principal conditions to receive the Sacrament of Penance worthily.

3. The time during which one may fulfill the Easter Duty has been set for all parishes from Passion Sunday to the first Sunday after Easter.

Why should these directives no longer be useful today? Let us profit from this salutary time during the course of which Our Lord is accustomed to dispense grace abundantly. Let us not imitate the foolish virgins who having no oil in their lamps found the door of the bridegroom's house closed and this terrible response: Nescio vos-"I know you not." Blessed are they who have the spirit of poverty for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The spirit of poverty means the spirit of detachment from things of this world.

Blessed are they who weep for they shall be consoled. Let us think of Jesus in the Garden of Olives who wept for our sins. It is henceforth for us to weep for our sins and for those of our brethren.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for holiness for they shall be satisfied. Holiness-sanctity is attained by means of the Cross, penance and sacrifice. If we truly seek perfection then we must follow the Way of the Cross.

May we, during this Lenten Season, hear the call of Jesus and Mary and engage ourselves to follow them in this crusade of prayer and penance.

May our prayers, our supplications, and our sacrifices obtain from heaven the grace that those in places of responsibility in the Church return to her true and holy traditions, which is the only solution to revive and reflourish the institutions of the Church again.

Let us love to recite the conclusion of the Te Deum: In te Domine, speravi; non confundar in aeternum-"In Thee, O Lord, I have hoped. I will not be confounded in eternity."


+ Marcel Lefebvre
Sexagesima Sunday-14 February  1982
Rickenbach, Switzerland

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Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre
Volume 3, Chapter LXIII

Letter to Friends and Benefactors, No. 22
18 February 1982

Dear Friends and Benefactors:

During the audience I was given by Pope John Paul II in November 1978, after a prolonged conversation at the end of which the Pope seemed willing enough to make the Liturgy a matter of option, Cardinal Seper, having been summoned by the Pope, realized that he was willing to take this step and immediately exclaimed: "But, Holy Father, they are making the Old Mass into a banner!" a remark which seemed to make a considerable impression on the Pope.

Leaving to one side the disparaging tone of Cardinal Seper's remark, we are, however, bound to agree that the Mass is indeed the banner of the Catholic Faith, because it makes open profession of all the fundamental dogmas of our Faith combined. In it are to be found all the treatises of Catholic theology.

And by this very fact, this "Mystery of our Faith" overwhelms all the errors of Protestantism, Islam, Judaism, Modernism, and materialistic, socialist and communist secularism. No error can withstand our holy Catholic Mass. The Mass is anti ecumenical, in the sense of ecumenism practiced since the Council: namely, the union of all religions in an amalgam of prayer without dogma, withoutmorality, without specific laws, and agreement based on a few ambiguous slogans like "the rights of man," "the dignity of man," "religious liberty."

On the contrary, the Novus Ordo is precisely the banner of this false ecumenism, representing the annihilation of the Catholic religion and the Catholic priesthood.

For the honor of Jesus Christ and for the honor of the Church, let us be faithful to the Catholic Mass, symbol of our Faith, banner of our holy religion.

To continue this Catholic Mass we need priests, and so we need Catholic, and not Modernist seminaries, where, as always in the Church, young clerics can direct their formation and apostolate entirely towards the altar of divine Sacrifice.

In order to have young men suitably prepared to enter our seminaries, we need Catholic schools where young people will learn to love the Liturgy, Latin and plainchants and where they will be formed in a manly and Christian fashion by sacrificing themselves for the love of Jesus Christ under the care and guidance of their heavenly Mother.

The organizing of schools is therefore indispensable, not only for vocations to the priesthood, but for all vocations, including Catholic marriage with all that it represents in the way of ideal and sacrifice in our corrupt society.

Some schools have already been established in France and in America. Nuns showed us the way and now we are trying to follow in their steps with Catholic education for boys. Thus work has already begun on a school at Fanjeaux in the village of Montreal. To bring this undertaking to fruition we are counting on the ever generous aid of our friends and benefactors in France.

Germany too is to open its first school for boys in October. We are in no doubt that our friends in Germany will come forward generously to help Catholic families who no longer know where to send their children. The United States already has several foundations. The major seminary is having to expand in order to be able to accept the ever growing number of vocations. There, too, we are counting on the help of our benefactors. The seminary at Buenos Aires should finish construction of its first wing by March, but there are four more to build...!

We do not know how to thank you, dear friends and benefactors. Your great reward is for you to be present at the ordinations. Come, then, on June 27 to the seminary of Zaitzkofen in Germany, and on June 29 to Ec6ne, as usual. There you will reap the reward of your prayers and generosity.

May Jesus, Mary and Joseph bless you and keep you in the Catholic Faith.

+ Marcel Lefebvre
18 February 1982
Rickenbach