Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre - Volume II

[Stone]

Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre
Volume 2, Chapter IX

Predictions of Excommunication
3 July 1977

A number of journals predicted with confidence the impending excommunication of the Archbishop. The 30 June issue of the International Herald Tribune claimed that: "Most observers believe that the Pope must now respond sharply to Mgr. Lefebvre’s challenge, either by excommunicating him or defrocking him as a priest, to preserve papal authority." A similar report was carried in the 30 June edition of the Tribune de Genève. In England The Times had already published an editorial (28 June) predicting somewhat pompously: "It is now evident that the Pope is moving with great reluctance towards the excommunication of Monsignor Marcel Lefebvre, the former Archbishop of Dakar." The Paris correspondent of The Daily Telegraph had written in a report published on 27 June: “A warning by the Vatican last week makes it appear that this will be the last straw for Pope Paul. He is expected to excommunicate Monsignor Lefebvre, thereby creating or acknowledging the existence of a schism inside the Church of Rome.”

Subsequent events proved these suggestions to be groundless, nevertheless, it is far from impossible that the threat of excommunication was floated unofficially by the Vatican in an attempt to intimidate the Archbishop into cancelling the ordinations at the last minute.


Mass in a Casino

Volume I of the Apologia included a memorable cri de coeur by Father Henri Bruckberger, 0. P., contrasting the welcome traditionally reserved for newly ordained priests with that accorded to those from Ecône.1 He commented:

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.

Father Bruckberger's indignation could hardly have been justified more dramatically than when, on 3 July 1977, one of the priests ordained five days previously, had no option but to celebrate his "First Mass" in a casino. Here is the account given in the 4 July 1977 issue of the International Herald Tribune.

Nice, July 3

The Most Rev. Marcel Lefebvre, who is in danger of being excommunicated by the Catholic Church, helped celebrate Mass today before an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 persons in one of the biggest casinos on the Riviera.

“We are a little like the Church of the catacombs,” Archbishop Lefebvre said when asked if he was upset that the Mass was being celebrated in the Palais de la Mediterranée. "We are hunted everywhere. So we are forced to do as the priests during the (French) Revolution who had to hide to say the Mass. We call to our friends. Look at this room. It is almost as beautiful as a cathedral."

The Mass, held five days after the Archbishop ordained fourteen priests in his seminary in Ecône, Switzerland, and celebrated by one of them, the Rev. Jacques Seuillot, took place on the landing at the top of a great staircase in the main hall leading to the gambling rooms.

A closed-circuit television system was installed to allow those in the back of the hall to see the ceremony. Observers said the traditionalists chose the casino, on the Promenade des Anglais, because they wanted to attract a large crowd.

In a 30-minute homily, the Archbishop repeated his attacks on Vatican reforms, ecumenism, and socialism.

“How can one still know the difference between truth and error?" he asked. "It is by questioning and denouncing ecumencial conferences, where one mixes religions and gives the impression that there is no difference between Catholicism and Protestantism.

“We are in total confusion. The holy Catholic Church alone possesses the truth. We are accused of wanting to separate from Rome. This is not true. We are Romans. We ask only of the Pope to be the successor of Peter."

Rightist Tracts

At the conclusion of the Mass, rightist militants, apparently sympathetic with the Archbishop's movement, distributed tracts in the casino.2

The Pope has suspended Archbishop Lefebvre from priestly functions. On his arrival in Nice yesterday, the Archbishop, 71, said he did not think "that the rupture was consummated with Rome. But if that does happen, I will take no account of a decision of excommunication. I don't think the Pope explicitly said that he would excommunicate me. If ever that happens, I'll take no account of it."

15 July 1977
Report in the Catholic Telegraph (U. S. A.)

Anglican bishop 3 and theologian Dr. Arthur Michael Ramsey, former archbishop of Canterbury, has been given an honorary doctorate by the Pontifical University of Salamanca, Spain, in recognition of his theological work and quest for Christian unity. At the recent ceremonies, Dr. Ramsey cited the historic meeting between him and Pope Paul VI in 1966 as the occasion which launched the Anglican- Roman Catholic study commission.

Footnotes
1. pp. 227-231.

2. The Archbishop’s enemies have continually attempted to discredit him by associating him with extreme right wing political movements. This tactic was examined in detail in Vol. I, pp. 256-8. It will suffice to state here that if right-wing groups distribute literature outside buildings in which the Archbishop is celebrating Mass or giving a lecture he is powerless to prevent it. This does not prove that he is fascist any more than the fact that my own bishop took part in an antiracialist protest march with communists and homosexuals proves that he is a communist homosexual.

3. It should not be necessary to point out that Dr. Ramsey was not a bishop, simply a heretical layman-and yet he was awarded an honorary degree by a pontifical university which would certainly not have permitted Mgr. Lefebvre, who is a bishop and a Catholic, to set foot on its campus. This is the Conciliar Church with a vengeance!

[Stone]

Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre
Volume 2, Chapter X

Predictions of Excommunication
July 1977

The 29 July 1977 edition of the National Catholic Reporter carried the news of the reconsecration of Queen of Angels Church in Dickinson, Texas. The local bishop had sold the building in the belief that it would be demolished to make way for a parking lot. He was extremely indignant when he learned that it was to be used as a church again. Built in the Spanish Colonial style, it had been restored fully to its former beauty, and was reconsecrated by the Archbishop on 10 July 1977. It now forms the center of one of the most successful traditionalist "parishes" in the world, and is also the location of The Angelus Press-the official English-language Publishers and Editor for Archbishop Lefebvre and the International Society of St. Pius X. Hundreds of thousands of books and pamphlets explaining the traditionalist Catholic caused have been printed in Dickinson and distributed throughout the world.

The Reporter article mentioned that: "Lefebvre told his supporters in Dickinson, Texas, that 'they must be careful adopt not to adopt positions of being schismatic-carrying resistance of Vatican policy to the point of denying the jurisdiction o f the Pope over the Church’.”

It then referred to the fact that the Archbishop had been refused entry to Mexico. This incident is not without some ironic humor. According to the Vatican II  Declaration on Religious Liberty the State should not prevent any individual expressing his religious views in public. Indeed, State interference is condemned by this document (see Volume I, Appendix IV). But, according to the Reporter: "A spokesman for Mexico's Interior Ministry said the government consulted on Lefebvre's visit 'with several sectors, especially the Mexican bishops,' according to wire service reports." This report seems to confirm a long article in the 20 July 1977 issue of the French daily L 'Aurore, claiming that the Vatican had launched a massive diplomatic effort to minimize the effect of the Archbishop's visit to South America. It stated that furnished with messages from Cardinal Villot, the Apostolic Nuncios in South America visited governments and national hierarchies demanding that the Archbishop should not be allowed to pass ("Mot d'ordre: Mgr. Lefebvre ne doit pas passer"). The same article also reported a second Vatican campaign, emissaries of the Pope pretending to be sympathetic to the traditionalist cause, had visited Econe, obtained details of seminarians and their families, and then pressured the families into persuading the seminarians to leave.1 It claimed that a dozen had done so.

Mexico was the only country which actually prevented the Archbishop from entering, but difficulties were placed in his way in other countries by the State authorities, and he was subjected to a veritable tirade of abuse from spokesmen for national hierarchies. Some idea of this invective can be gained from a report in The Citizen (Ottawa), 16 August 1977:

Before, during, and after his visit Lefebvre was the target of a hostile barrage from Roman Catholic prelates in Latin America. The friendliest comment came from Argentine Archbishop of Parana, Adolfo Tortolo – a conservative-who said: "Not everything is negative in the demands of Monsignor Lefebvre. But his way of going about things is completely negative."

Other Church leaders were less inhibited. Chilean Cardinal Raul Silva Henriquez said Lefebvre was "a traitor to the Church and to the Pope, a Judas.” Colombian Cardinal Anibal Munoz pronounced: “Those who are loyal to Monsignor Lefebvre are disloyal to the Pope.” The Archbishop of Buenos Aires threatened any priest who let Lefebvre use church facilities with punishment according to Canon Law. A Patagonian bishop said he prayed daily to "God and the Holy Mother to preserve me from such attitudes” as Lefebvre's.

As Lefebvre sailed for home Church authorities prepared the faithful at ports of call. Montevideo Archbishop Carlos Parteli drew up a pastoral letter in which he said Lefebvre was “scandalizing the faithful” with his behavior. Parteli also denounced the use of Latin in the Mass saying: “The Church cannot go on using an archaic language which nobody understands any more.”

In Rio de Janeiro, bishops' conference president, Monsignor Aloisio Lorscheider, himself something of a conservative, fired a parting volley by saying that anyone who takes part in a Mass given by Lefebvre is committing a mortal sin.

It is, then, hardly surprising that many of those who would like to have heard what the Archbishop had to say were browbeaten into staying away.

After visiting Colombia and Brazil, the Archbishop arrived in Chile. The following report appeared in The Times (London) on 19 July 1977:

Santiago, July 18: About 800 people defied the Chilean Roman Catholic hierarchy here last night to hear Mgr. Marcel Lefebvre, the rebel archbishop, celebrate the traditional Latin Mass in the reception room of a luxury hotel.

It ended with shouts of "long live the faithful archbishop" and the singing of the Chilean national anthem.

During the service Mgr. Lefebvre declared: "We cannot change religion. For the last 15 years we have been well aware that there are those who wish change. The heart of the Church remains the same."

The Pope has accused him of provoking a schism in the Church after his refusal to accept reforms of the Second Vatican Council. The local hierarchy had advised Catholics not to attend any ceremonies he might perform.

When he flew in from Colombia, 500 people greeted him at the airport.

There were no moves to ban his visit here as happened in Mexico last week when he was refused an entry visa. But apparently there are plans to prevent his arrival in Argentina which he plans to visit later this week.

The Argentine Ambassador in Bogota informed his French counterpart yesterday that the Argentine government would consider such a visit inappropriate. - Reuter.

The Archbishop next went to Argentina.

Unfortunately, among those supporting him during his visit to Argentina were members of fascist and anti-semitic organizations. It was explained in Volume I that the Archbishop has never been associated with any right-wing political movement, and that if members of such movements give him public support or distribute literature outside buildings in which he is present there is nothing he can do about it. Not surprisingly, the Archbishop's enemies used the support of these fascists as an excuse to brand him with their opinions. The report in The Citizen (Ottawa), which was very hostile to the Archbishop, admitted that he and his permanent entourage were appalled by some of the views expressed by the fascist groups. The committee which had sponsored his visit issued a statement saying that the Archbishop "is not an ex-Nazi, is not anti-Semitic nor anti anything else. He is only preaching the traditional doctrine of the Church."

The following report on his visit to Argentina appeared in the 7 August 1977 issue of The National Catholic Register:

Buenos Aires (NC): Police prevented Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre from saying Mass at a makeshift altar in a suburban barracks and told some 300 of his followers there that security laws did not allow any public demonstrations.

About 200 persons had welcomed him at Ezeiza International Airport July 20, but only one priest responded to repeated invitations by an organizing committee to greet the French churchman.

Archbishop Lefebvre had been warned that his presence would not be welcomed in Argentina. Argentine diplomats in Switzerland, where he has his headquarters, and in Colombia, where he visited a sister, had said that the government was supporting the Vatican's stand in suspending the archbishop, and did not want to allow further public display of disobedience.

After learning of the ban on the Mass at the barracks, the archbishop’s followers angrily called police “Communists.”

Archbishop Lefebvre has repeatedly denounced the Church renewal that followed the Second Vatican Council and said it has opened the Church to Communist infiltration. Under Argentina's rightist military regime, police and security forces have been repressing leftist groups under state of siege, allegedly to protect national security. In this context, observers said, calling police "communists" makes little sense.

Archbishop Lefebvre's followers are identified in Argentina as members of several conservative organizations: Phalanx for Faith, the Knights of Queen Mary, and groups affiliated with the Defense of Family, Fatherland and Property organization.

Sponsors of the rightist magazine Roma also joined Faith Forever, the umbrella organization that made preparations for the visit of the Archbishop.

About 30 persons attended a Latin Mass Archbishop Lefebvre said at a private home in Buenos Aires a few hours after his arrival. Newsman and photographers in large numbers gave coverage to every move by the archbishop. Spokesmen for Faith Forever said he was to spend six days in Buenos Aires but did not plan to visit other places in Argentina.

Foreign Minister Oscar Antonio Montes said that Archbishop Lefebvre had been admitted into the country under "freedom of worship laws.”

Cardinal Juan Carlos Aramburu of Buenos Aires issued a warning to all pastors, reminding them that "no place of Catholic worship should be made available to the archbishop for any religious services, under pain of canonical sanctions."

Catholics must also abstain from participating in any Mass offered by the archbishop, the warning said. Instead, they "should pray so that the Lord will touch his heart and Archbishop Lefebvre will renounce his rebellious attitude," the cardinal said.

Cardinal Raul Primatesta of Cordoba, who chairs the Argentine Bishops' Conference, said the French prelate's visit should not be magnified and reminded Catholics they can identify the true Church by the time-proven formula: "Where Peter is, where his successor the Pope is, there is the Church."

Traditionalists announced plans to open a seminary in Argentina under Archbishop Lefebvre's Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X, from which the Vatican has withdrawn recognition. The archbishop was suspended of all priestly functions a year ago after performing illicit ordinations.

Later, at a stormy press conference, Archbishop Lefebvre said he does not have "bellicose intentions" in his opposition to Church renewal and the Vatican.

About 150 local followers of the suspended French archbishop entered the hall of a downtown hotel where the press conference took place and booed 50 newsmen every time the followers disapproved of the questions.

The bitterest reaction came when a newsman asked whether a book written by Archbishop Lefebvre, A Bishop Speaks, did not raise the issue of disobedience and arrogance.

Once calm was restored, Archbishop Lefebvre replied that obedience is a relative obligation. He stated:

"As soon as authority fails its mandate, it also loses its right to obedience. When the Pope by his policies leads us into contacts with Protestants and other religions, in such a way that we lose our faith, in that case the Pope forfeits the right to obedience by his subordinates."

At another point the followers of the Archbishop requested that photographers leave the hall. After vigorous protests from the press, organizers said they could stay.

Asked how he felt about his suspension from priestly ministry by the Vatican a year ago, Archbishop Lefebvre commented:

“I have no awareness of committing a grave sin by keeping my Catholic Faith.”

He said that, in his view, the post-conciliar liturgical changes “are leading the faithful, almost unconsciously, to a conversion into Protestantism.”

To another question the archbishop replied that he did not seek to form “another church.”

“I hold no bellicose intentions, I do not wish to fight anyone. I am not opposing the Pope, I am just asking him to be the Pope, the successor of Peter. I am perhaps the son who loves the Pope most, but I pray to God that he may show a constant concern to preserve the Catholic faith in every place and at each opportunity,” he said.

Footnote
1. The relevant section of the article reads, in French; "La seconde offensive, plus secèrte encore, se déroule à Ecône même. Des émissaires du pape, envoyés en observateurs, et qui se montrent au début plutôt bienveillants à I'égard de I'exérience 'traditionaliste,' passent en revue les séminaristes, contactent leurs familles, et, progressivement, s'efforcent de les ramener dans le 'droit chemin' de I'Eglise."

[Stone]

Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre
Volume 2, Chapter XI

An Irony of History
13 August 1977

This book is concerned primarily with the conflict and the negotiations between Mgr. Lefebvre and the Vatican, and not with the activities of the Society’s priests. I am making an exception in the case of Father Edward Black’s first public Mass in Edinburgh in view of the irony of its proximity to the canonization of St. John Ogilvie. My account of the Mass which follows appeared in the 31 August 1977 issue of The Remnant.


The Wheel Turns Full Circle

In 1976 Pope Paul VI canonized the Scottish martyr priest Saint John Ogilvie. His principal crime had been to travel around Scotland  offering the Mass of St. Pius V. This Mass was not permitted in any of the Scottish churches. Those who attended them took part in a vernacular service celebrated upon a table, a service from which every reference to sacrifice had been removed.

On Saturday, 13 August 1977, Father Edward Black, a young Scottish priest ordained at Ecône on 29 June this year, celebrated his first public Mass in the city of Edinburgh.

Like St. John Ogilvie, he had had to be trained and ordained abroad, and, like St. John Ogilvie, he could not celebrate Mass in a church because the Mass he was offering was according to the Missal of St. Pius V. In the Scottish Catholic churches now, this Mass is forbidden, and in its place is used a vernacular service from which, where Canon II is used, almost every reference to sacrifice has been removed, and altars have once more been replaced by tables. If the ghost of John Knox ever walks in Scotland, he must certainly be laughing!

The Mass itself was celebrated with great beauty and dignity - it was a Solemn High Mass with a young French priest and sub-deacon assisting Father Black. Those who know anything of Scottish history will have heard of the "Auld Alliance" between France and Scotland - history certainly repeated itself on 13 August. Apart from the fact that it had to be celebrated in an hotel, there was nothing to indicate that Scotland is in the throes of a second Reformation. The congregation was well balanced between young and old, the singing was enthusiastic, and there were several kilts in evidence. Father Black preached a fine sermon on the nature of the Mass, which he kept on a very positive note. This in itself provided a useful example for traditionalists to follow; far more will be gained by stressing the positive nature of what we believe and what we uphold than by sterile attacks on those who disagree with us.

At a luncheon in Father Black's honor, he paid tribute to his parents for the fine Catholic upbringing without which he would never have become a priest-and among the others he thanked he made special mention of Miss Mary Neilson, Secretary of the Scottish Una Voce, who had been instrumental in bringing him into contact with Archbishop Lefebvre, and had helped and encouraged him in many ways during his course in the seminary. Miss Neilson gave a short address in which she warned those present to regard any press reports concerning Mgr. Lefebvre with great suspicion. She said that he had explained that if he attempted to correct all the false reports appearing about him in the press he would do nothing else.

In a vote of thanks, Mgr. John McFadyen paid particular tribute to the chairman of Scottish Una Voce, Mr. William Burns, and stressed that the steady progress made by Scottish Una Voce was in no small measure due to his moderate and constructive leadership.

All in all, it was a most encouraging day and any non-traditionalist present would have been very favorably impressed – impressed by Father Black and the young French clerics, by the beauty of the liturgy, and by the relaxed and informal atmosphere at the luncheon. It is a pity that the editors of a number of so-called traditionalist journals circulation in the USA could not have been present. It might have helped them to see, if they have not passed beyond the stage where they can be helped, that is not necessarily those who scream the loudest and have the widest range of invective who serve the Church best. The lives of the British martyr priests tell the same story.

[Stone]

Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre
Volume 2, Chapter XII

Three Great Gifts of God-A Sermon by His Grace

A Sermon pronounced by His Excellency Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on the Thirtieth Anniversary of
His Consecration as a Bishop

My dear brothers, my dear friends:

It is kind of Providence that this day of return to the seminary should coincide with the anniversary of my episcopal consecration which took place on September 18, 1947, in my native city. At the request of friends we are celebrating this anniversary in a special way.

In the breviary this morning we read the lesson of Tobias. It was said that the young Tobias, finding himself surrounded by the men of his race, the Jews, adoring a golden calf which had been set up by the King of Israel himself, went faithfully to the temple to offer the sacrifices God had demanded. He was thus faithful to the law of God.

Well, we hope that we too have been faithful to God, faithful to Our Lord Jesus Christ. Later on, Tobias was among the prisoners sent to Ninive and there, the Scripture says, while all his compatriots did homage to the pagan cult, he continued to hold to the truth, retinuit omnem veritatem. He held to the whole truth. I believe this is the lesson Holy Scripture has for us and I hope that we, too, remain faithful as Tobias did, both in his youth and in his captivity Is it not true that we today are in a certain sense in captivity, restraint surrounding us on all sides, imposed on us by those who bow to error both in the world and inside the Church itself? By those who juggle with the truth and who keep truth hidden instead of proclaiming it; we are in a world enslaved by the devil, enslaved by error.

But it is our wish to hold to truth. We want to continue to proclaim it. What then, is this truth? Do we have a monopoly on it? Are we so presumptuous as to say we have the truth, others do not? No, truth does not belong to us. It does not come from us, it was not invented by us. This truth was transmitted to us, it was given to us. It is written. It is living in the Church and in the whole history of the Church. This truth is known. It is in the books, in the catechisms, in all the acts of the councils, in all the acts of the sovereign pontiffs. It is in our Creed, in our Ten Commandments, in the gifts that God has made to us, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacraments. It is not we who invented this truth. We have only to persevere in it.

Because truth has an eternal character. The truth we profess is God, Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is God and God does not change. God remains immutable. It was St. Paul who said "vicissitudinis obumbratio." There is not a shadow of vicissitude in Him, not the shadow of changeability. God is unalterable, semper idem, always the same. Certainly He is the source of everything that changes but He, Himself, is unalterable, unchangeable. And by the fact that we profess God as truth we will enter in some way into eternity through truth. We have no right to change that truth. Indeed it cannot be changed. It will never change.

Men have been put on earth to receive a little of that light of eternity as it descends on them. They become in some way eternal themselves, immortal; but according to the extent to which they attach themselves to the things that change, to moving things, they move away from God. And here it is that we feel a need. All men feel this need. They have in them an immortal soul which is already now in eternity, a soul which will be happy or unhappy, but it is a soul that exists. It will not die.

Every man who is born, who has a soul has entered into eternity. That is why we have need of eternal things, of the true eternity, which is God. We cannot do without it. It is part of our lives. It is what is most essential to us. That is why men seek the truth, seek the eternal, because they have an essential need of eternity.

And what are the means by which Our Lord has given us eternity, communicated it to us, made eternity enter into our lives even here below? Often when I was going through the African countries on my diocesan visits I chose a theme that was dear to me and very simple, too. You have heard it many times but for the simple people I spoke to it summed up the truth. Asking what are the gifts the Good God has given us which make us participants in the divine life, eternal life, I would answer: there are three great gifts which God has made us and they are the Pope, the Blessed Virgin and the Eucharistic Sacrifice.


The Pope

In reality it is an extraordinary gift that God has made us in giving us the Pope, in giving us the Successors of Peter, giving us precisely this perpetuity in truth, communicated to us through the Successors of Peter, that must be communicated to us through them. And it seems inconceivable that a Successor of Peter could fail in any way to transmit the truth that he is obliged to transmit. Indeed, without virtually disappearing from the line of succession he cannot fail to communicate that which the popes have always communicated, the Deposit of Faith which does not belong to him alone.

The Deposit of Faith does not belong to the Pope. It is the treasure of truth which has been taught during twenty centuries. He must transmit it faithfully and exactly to all those under him who are charged in turn to communicate the truth of the Gospel. He is not free.

But should it happen because of mysterious circumstances which we cannot understand, which baffle our imagination, which go beyond our conception, if it should happen that a pope, he who is seated on the throne of Peter, comes to obscure in some way the truth which it is his duty to transmit or if he does not transmit it faithfully or allows error to darken truth or hide it in any way, then we must pray to God with all our hearts, with all our soul, that light continues to be thrown on that which he is charged to transmit.

And we cannot follow error, change truth, just because the one who is charged with transmitting it is weak and allows error to spread around him. We don't want the darkness to encroach on us. We want to live in the light of truth. We remain faithful to that which has been taught for two thousand years. That what has been taught for two thousand years and which is part of eternity could change is inconceivable.

Because it is eternity which has been taught to us. It is the eternal God, Jesus Christ eternal God, and everything which is centered on God is centered on eternity. Never can the Trinity be changed. Never can the redemptive work of Christ through the Cross and the Sacrifice of the Mass be changed. These things are eternal; they belong to God. How can someone here below change those things? Who is the priest who feels he has the right to change those things, to modify them? Impossible!

When we possess the past we possess the present and we possess the future. Because it is impossible, I say, metaphysically impossible, to separate the past from the present and the future. Impossible! Then God would no longer be God! God would no longer be eternal! God would no longer be immutable! And there would be nothing more to believe in. We would be completely in error.

This is why, without worrying about all that is happening around us in these times, we ought to close our eyes to the horror of this drama we are living through, close our eyes and affirm our Creed, our Ten Commandments, meditate on the Sermon on the Mount, which is also our law. We must attach ourselves to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, to the Sacraments awaiting the light that will shine around us again. That is all. We must do this without becoming bitter or violent in a spirit that is unfaithful to Our Lord. Let us stay charitable. Let us pray, suffer, accept all the trials, everything that happens, everything that God sends us. Let us do as Tobias did. Abandoned by everyone as they went to adore the golden calf of the gods of the pagans, he remained faithful. Still, he too could have thought that, since only he remained faithful it might be that he was mistaken. But, no, he knew that whatever God had taught to his forebears could not change. The truth of God existed and could not change. And so it is with us. We too have to rely upon the truth that is God yesterday, today and tomorrow. Jesus Christus heri, hodie, et in saecula.

And that is why I say we must retain our confidence in the papacy. We must retain confidence in the Successor of Peter insofar as he is the successor of Peter. But if it should happen that he were not perfectly faithful in his duties, then we must remain faithful to those who were the successors of Peter and not to him who is not the successor of Peter. That is all. His duty is to transmit the Deposit of Faith.


The Blessed Virgin

The second gift is that of the Blessed Virgin Mary .She has never changed. Is it possible to imagine that the Blessed Virgin Mary could change in her attitude to the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, her divine Son, toward the Sacrifice of the Cross, toward the work of our redemption? Is it possible to imagine that the Blessed Virgin Mary could change one iota of her faith, that she could have had doubts at some period of her life, that she could have thought herself mistaken? That she could have doubted the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, doubted the Blessed Trinity, she who was filled with the Holy Ghost? Impossible! Inconceivable!

Here below she was already in eternity. The Blessed Virgin Mary, through her faith, an unchangeable, profound faith, could not be disturbed in any way. That is evident. Do not let us be disturbed by the noises around us but keep faithful, faithful like the Blessed Virgin Mary. And I want to add to this subject of the Blessed Virgin Mary something which seems to me to be important for us at this time in which we live. Continuously we are told the Virgin says this or says that. The Virgin has appeared here, the Virgin has communicated this message to that person. Of course, we do not rule out the possibility that a word of the Blessed Virgin could be addressed to persons of her choice. That is evident. But considering the kind of period we are living through, we must be suspicious. We must mistrust.

The place of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the theology of the Church is, in my estimation, infinitely sufficient to make us love her above everyone after Our Lord Jesus Christ, and that we should have toward her a devotion which is profound and continuous day after day. It is not necessary that we have constant recourse to messages about which we cannot be absolutely certain whether they come from the Blessed Virgin or not: I am not speaking of the apparitions which have been recognized by the Church. But we must be very careful when it comes to rumors that circulate everywhere today. All the time I am receiving people or communications which are said to be addressed to me from the Blessed Virgin or from Our Lord - a message received here, another there. Whereas in fact we should hope the Blessed Virgin is with us every day.

And she is. We know that. She is with us. She is present at every Sacrifice of the Mass. She cannot separate herself from the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Our devotion to the Blessed Virgin ought to be profound, perfect. But it should not have to depend on private messages.


The Eucharistic Sacrifice

God, Jesus Christ, has given us Himself in the Eucharist. What more beautiful thing could He do? I often say to the seminarians: if the Priestly Society of St. Pius X has a particular spirituality - and I do not really want it to have one, although I do not criticize the founders of Orders like St. Ignatius, Sts. Dominic and Vincent de Paul, who I know wanted to give particular characters to their societies, characters without doubt willed by Providence at the moment they were founded – I think that if there is a particular mark to our Society, it is devotion to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

How our spirits, our hearts, our bodies are as if captivated by the great mystery of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass! And it is in proportion to how we deepen our understanding of the great mystery of the Sacrifice of the Mass that we understand the priesthood, the grandeur of the priesthood. Because it is intimately, I say metaphysically, bound up with the Sacrifice of the Mass. And this is of the greatest importance in these times.

We have need of this, my dear friends. You have need of being captured by this spirituality of the Mass. Not only the priests, but also our religious, our brothers, our nuns, and all of the laity, all of you faithful here present. We must have for the Sacrifice of the Mass a devotion greater than ever before because it is the very foundation stone of our faith.

I hardly dare cite for you an example, something that happened in Chile during the three days I spent there. Still, because the idea occurs to me, I will indeed tell you, if only to show the point of degradation the concept of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has reached in the minds of some of the highest members of the hierarchy. During my stay in Chile a concelebration was televised. It was presided over by the Auxiliary Bishop of Santiago. I myself did not see the screening but it was described to me by many people who saw it. There were some fifteen to twenty priests concelebrating with him. During the ceremony the Auxiliary Bishop explained to the faithful, that is, everyone who was looking at the television, that it was a meal and he saw no reason why one should not smoke during a meal. And he himself smoked during that concelebration!

That is how far things have reached. This is the sad state of degradation, of sacrilege a bishop can attain. It is unheard of, inconceivable! Penance must be done for years in reparation for such offenses, for such unimaginable scandal! It serves to show how far one can go when one no longer believes.

We must be attached to the Sacrifice of the Mass as to the apple of our eye; as we are attached to that which is dearest to us, that which is the most respected, the most holy, the most sacred, the most divine. That is the meaning of this seminary.

They may criticize the seminary in any way they like; and they do! The seminary is this way, that way. They have decided this about it, that about it. But, in fact, they decide nothing, change nothing. The seminary stays as it is. It continues to be what it is because that was why it was founded. The seminary remains a Catholic seminary. And if God gives me life, the seminary will not change. I would rather die than change any part of the Catholic doctrine which must be taught in the seminary. With the grace of God, come what may, we will not change. So let them say what they will. Let them say that the seminary has a new direction, the seminary is this way or that. It is the devil who says such things in order to destroy the seminary. Obviously he cannot tolerate Catholic priests who have the Faith.

And then, one cannot avoid speaking about it, all around us here and there in every country, but particularly in France, there are divisions among those who are trying to hold to the faith, a mixture of calumny, slander, exaggerated words, foolish expressions, unjustified suppositions. Let us ignore it all. Let us instead work well, doing the will of God, according to the teachings of the Catholic Church, continuing like our predecessors and our ancestors, doing what the Council of Trent asked of us, bishops, who must continue the formation which has always been given to priests. If we do this we will be certain that we are remaining faithful.


Let us Remain Faithful

That is enough. Let us remain calm. Let us remain faithful. And if it should ever come to be that the faith is not taught here, then leave me. If, my dear seminarians, I do not teach you Catholic truth, then leave! Do not stay here. That is your duty. But, if I teach the Catholic Faith-and you have the whole library at your disposal to find out whether or not what was handed to us is being handed down to you-then, be confident. And we will do everything so that the Catholic Faith continues to be taught here, taught in its entirety so that you too can carry on that truth that is so full of grace and life. Truth is the source of life. We have need of that life. The faithful are hungry for it. Why is it we have request for priests from all sides? Because the faithful are thirsty for truth, thirsty for the grace of God, for the supernatural life, thirsty for that eternity toward which we are heading.

Therefore, have confidence in what the Church has always done – not confidence in Mgr. Lefebvre. I am a poor man like the others. I have no pretension to be better than others. On the contrary, I do not know why .God has permitted me to have thirty years in the episcopate. I think that if I were to judge things on a human plane, I would have preferred to remain a missionary in the jungles of Gabon; in isolation. I would not have had all the problems I have had in my thirty years in the episcopate. But God has wanted it this way. He continues to try us. Very well, if that is His will it must be and we must continue to carry the Cross. It is not because He imposes crosses that we may abandon Him. On the contrary, we may not abandon Our Lord. We must follow Him.

And so, my dear friends, be faithful - faithful to the Pope, successor of Peter, when he shows himself to be truly the successor of Peter. Because that is what a pope is and it is in this sense we have need of him. We are not the people who want to break with the authority of the church, with the successor of Peter. But neither are we people who want to break with twenty centuries of tradition in the Church, with twenty centuries of successors of Peter!

We have made our choice. We have chosen to be obedient in the real sense, obedient to what all the Popes have taught for twenty centuries and we cannot imagine that he who sits on Peter's throne does not want to teach these things. Well, if that is the case, then God will judge him. But we cannot go into error because there is a kind of rupture in the chain of the successors of Peter. We want to remain faithful to the successors of Peter who transmitted to us the Deposit of the Faith. It is in this sense that we are faithful to the Catholic Church, that we remain within it and can never go into schism. Since we are attached to twenty centuries of Faith we cannot make a schism. That is what guarantees for us the past, the present and the future. It is impossible to separate the past from the present and the future. Sustaining ourselves with the past, we are sure of the present and the future.

So have confidence ! Ask the Blessed Virgin Mary to help us under all circumstances. She is as strong as an army arrayed for battle. She who suffered as Queen of Martyrs at the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ. And will we not follow Our Blessed Mother and with her be ready to suffer martyrdom so that the work of redemption can continue?

[Stone]

Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre
Volume 2, Chapter XIII

Letter to Friends and Benefactors (No. 13)
17 October 1977

Dears Friends and Benefactors,

At a time when the Synod of Bishops is meeting in Rome to study the question of Catechetics, one would wish that the introductory pages to the Catechism of the Council of Trent, drawn up by the very authors of that Catechism, might be re-read by the Bishops present at the Synod. They would learn therein how those authors meant to resolve problems of adaptation.

We have every reason for fearing that, in spite of some good interventions, the work of conciliar reform will continue. It will not be the Archbishop of Saigon who will "put on the brakes" since he considers that the only catechetics possible in a Marxist country are collaboration with Marxism. And in that, he affirms, he is taking his stand on the texts of the conciliar decree Gaudium et Spes (cf. Edith Oelamare's article in Rivarol, 13 October 1977).

The facts show us no sign of a return to Tradition, but much to the contrary, a continual establishing of ecumenism and Marxism. The most inconceivable innovations are left without public reprimand, whereas only those who maintain the Catholic Faith are hounded down and condemned.

In the face of the constant progress of the auto demolition of the Church, the Mystical Body of Our Lord, which is the living Church, reacts and demands that the hierarchy help it to survive, not die. Numerous members of the Mystical Body go to extraordinary lengths in order to survive, doing all they can to find faithful priests and bishops who will give them the sources of life.

In such a predicament, it is the law of survival which commands, and no positive law, even ecclesiastical, can contradict this primary and fundamental law. Authority, law in the Church, as in all society, is at the service of life, and ultimately supernatural life, which is life eternal.

It is not surprising that, when authority fails or is used to annihilate that which it ought to be building up, the social body finds itself crippled, and that the reaction takes place according to different criteria which can be somewhat divergent. The important thing is to save the Catholic Faith inscribed in our catechisms, to save the means of living it by the grace of the Sacrifice of the Mass and of the Sacraments, to save the means of passing it on to future generations through Catholic schools and seminaries.

This is what we are trying to do through our seminaries and priories.

The appeal of the faithful is ever more widespread. Besides Europe and North America, South America, Australia, the Indies and Japan are also calling out to us.

Would that this appeal might be heard by Rome and by a great many bishops, and that they might respond to this expectation through the means which the Church has always used!

As for us, we are trying to respond through the means Providence places at our disposal: our forty priests and 140 seminarians of every nationality, our Brothers, our Sisters, our twenty houses, of which three are seminaries, all founded within eight years, are a proof that God is with us as our Helper.

This year we must find larger premises for our German-language seminary and also for our seminary in the United States. The growing number of vocations makes this obligatory. Thirty-nine new students have entered Econe, among them eight Americans, five Italians, and three Argentinians. Weissbad has received seven new-comers and the American seminary, sixteen.

Six have entered the Brothers' Novitiate, and there are eight postulants for the Sisterhood as well as two oblates. In this connection we are taking part in the foundation of a Cistercian monastery for women, and also of a Carmel according to the most faithful traditions. Girls and women aspiring to a contemplative life can obtain the addresses of these two foundations by writing to us here at Ecône.

This is why we ask you, dear friends and benefactors, to continue helping us by your prayers and your gifts, persuaded moreover, that the difficulties with Rome will end well in a solution. But nothing can be done without a redoubling of fervor in prayer, in the Sacrifice of the Mass by the intercession of the Most Holy Virgin. She alone will vanquish all the obstacles which impede the Reign of her Divine Son from being extended over families and societies for the salvation of souls.

We remind you that the Rosary is recited every evening at seven o'clock in all our houses for the intentions of friends and benefactors living and dead. Unite with us in this supplication.

And may God bless you.

[Stone]

Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre
Volume 2, Chapter XIV

The Case is Reopened
January 1978

Archbishop Lefebvre and the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

On 21 May 1975, Archbishop Lefebvre wrote a letter to Cardinal Staffa claiming that the procedure by those who had condemned him and ordered the suppression of his Society was uncanonical (Apologia, Vol. I, pp. 73-74). In that letter he made the following demand: “I demand to be judged by the only tribunal competent in these matters, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.” He made this demand because the Commission of Cardinals had condemned him on a matter of faith, his Declaration of 21 November 1974 (Apologia, Vol. I, pp. 38-40). Despite all the rumors of his impending excommunication which were circulated in 1977, no such sanction was imposed. Instead, the Archbishop was given what he had demanded, the opportunity to have his case examined by the appropriate congregation according to accepted canonical norms.

It will be noted that during the course of the examination conducted by the Sacred Congregation, the Archbishop was treated with great courtesy, that all the criticisms made of him were expressed clearly in writing, and that he was given the opportunity to answer them fully in writing. The members of the Sacred Congregation are theologians of the highest competence, and their examination of the Archbishop is very searching and, in places, rather technical-as are some of his replies. Readers who are not familiar with the controversy concerning religious liberty might find the discussion on this point somewhat hard to follow.

I have added no comments to the original documents which are cited here. References are made to the Archbishop's books from time to time, but this is always to a French edition. Where an English text is available I have added the relevant page numbers in square brackets. Occasionally, this has not been possible. There have been two editions of the book Un Evêque Parle, the second contains material which is not included in A Bishop Speaks, the English edition.1 Where Yves Congar's book, La crise dans l'Eglise et Mgr. Lefebvre is cited, I have replaced references to the French edition by references to the English version, Challenge to the Church (London, 1977). All the abbreviations used can be found in the list on page xvii.

28 January 1978

Letter of Cardinal Seper to Mgr. Lefebvre

Sacra Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei
00193 Romae,
Piazza del S. Ulffizio, 11
Prot. N. 1144/69

Your Excellency,

His Holiness Pope Paul VI has entrusted the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith with the examination of your situation in the Church in the light of the doctrinal positions you have taken up in your statements and writings, and also in your undertakings.

The searching examination required by the Holy Father has been conducted in conformity with the Ratio agendi of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (AAS, 63 1971, 234-236), and with a real concern for objectivity. Unfortunately errors and dangerous opinions have been found in your spoken and written declarations, and they show themselves also in your behavior.

The Ratio agendi of the Congregation prescribes: "13. Propositions which have been made and have been judged erroneous or dangerous are to be pointed out to their author, so that, within the prescribed month, he may send in his written answer. If there should be need also of discussion, the author will be invited to meet men appointed by the Sacred Congregation and to confer with them."

I beg you, therefore, Excellency, to take cognizance of the official notification which the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith sends you. You will find it, together with appropriate explanations, in the enclosed Annex. It contains serious criticisms, which are not, however, judgments without appeal. This Congregation requires you, within the time stated by the Ratio agendi in the article quoted above, to reply to those criticisms. Your answer can take various forms -a justification, or the clearing up of a misunderstanding, or a firm avowal of error that you are ready to correct, or of a deviation from doctrine that you are willing to put straight. Those answers will be studied with benevolent interest; for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has an ardent desire that, with God's help, you will be able to find the way to a true reconciliation with the Vicar of Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church.

Accept, Excellency, the assurance of my prayers and the expression of my devotedness in Our Lord.

Franc, Card., Seper
Prefect

Fr. Jérôme Hammer,
O.P.Secretary

Annex

This Annex, Monseigneur, will take up assertions which are found in your speeches and writings and which the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith considers dangerous or erroneous. Certain of them will be linked with your enterprises and your behavior, where those seem to throw light on their bearing, The Annex is in two parts, each with its subdivisions. The first part deals with particular assertions on 1) religious liberty according to Vatican II; 2) the Ordo Missae promulgated by Pope Paul VI; 3) the rite of Confirmation also promulgated by him; 4) the sacrament of Penance. The object of the second part is more general assertions 1) on the authority of the Second Vatican Council; 2) on the  authority of Pope Paul VI.


I – Particular Assertions

1. Religious liberty according to the Second Vatican Council

You have expressed yourself many times, Monseigneur, on this subject - for example in the following text: "That term (religious liberty) has never been understood in the sense admitted by the Council. All earlier documents of the Church which speak of religious liberty are referring to the liberty of (true)religion, not to the liberty of the religions. Always, when the Church has spoken of that liberty, she has spoken of the liberty of the (true) religion and of tolerance for other religions. We tolerate error. To give it liberty is to give it a right - and it has no rights. Truth alone has rights. To admit the liberty of religions is to give error the same right as truth, which is impossible. The Church can never say such a thing. In my opinion it is blasphemy to dare to say that...If we have the faith we have no right to admit that: it is the error in common law which was condemned by Pius IX and all the popes.” (M. Lefebvre, Un évêque parle, Jarzé, 1976, pp. 135-136].)

That declaration calls for the following remarks:

1 – The Declaration on Religious Liberty should be read in the context of the other conciliar documents, in particular the dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium. It says clearly that “the one true religion subsists in the Catholic and Apostolic Church, to which the Lord Jesus entrusted the task of spreading it among all men" (DH, 1).

2 – The Council in no way teaches the religious indifferentism condemned by the popes. On the contrary it affirms that men have the moral obligation of seeking the truth, of recognizing it and of ordering their whole life according to its demands (DH, 2). It recalls to the faithful the duty of the missionary apostolate and that of forming the conscience by the “sacred and certain " doctrine of the Catholic Church, "by the will of Christ, the teacher of truth" (cf. DH, 14).

3 – The Council recognizes the human person's right to religious liberty, that is, the right to be, with regard to all human power, exempt from coercion (coercitio) in seeking, choosing, and professing (even publicly) a religion (DH, 2). It bases that right not on an alleged "right" which is equally of truth or error, but on the transcendence of the person and of his ultimate choices with regard to civil society, on man's innate manner of tending to the truth and of recognizing it according to the judgment of his conscience, and on the liberty of the act of faith (DH, 2,3, 10).

4 – The affirmation of this right of religious liberty is in line with earlier pontifical documents (cf. DH, 2 note 2) which, in face of étatisme 2 and modem totalitarianisms, affirmed the rights of the human person. In the conciliar Declaration that 'point of doctrine is clearly part of the teaching of the Magisterium, and, though it is not the object of a definition, it demands docility and assent (cf. Const. Dogm. Lumen Gentium, 25).

Faithful Catholics are therefore not permitted to reject it as erroneous, but must accept it in the exact sense and bearing given it by the Council, keeping in mind "the traditional Catholic teaching on the moral duty of individuals and societies towards the true religion and the one Church of Christ" (cf. DH, 1).



2. The Ordo Missae promulgated by Pope Paul VI

Your criticism of the Ordo Missae promulgated by Paul VI goes well beyond a liturgical preference: it has an essentially doctrinal character. You say rightly that there are three essential realities in the Sacrifice of the Mass: "The Priest... the real and substantial presence of the Victim who is Christ ...the sacrificial oblation realized by the priest in the Consecration" (Un évêque parle...p. 142 [95]). Unfortunately, you add that "the whole of the (liturgical) reform directly or indirectly impairs these three Truths which are essential for the Catholic faith," that "all that has been prescribed is redolent of a new conception nearer to the Protestant conception than to the Catholic conception" (loc. cit.). And you declare: “There is nothing left in this new conception of the Mass…That is why I do not see how one can make a seminary with this new Mass" (op. cit. p. 163 [111]). You refrain, however, from saying that the new Mass is heretical: "I will never say that,” you assure us (op. cit. p. 228 [159]). But, "the changes of the new rite" are calculated to make "young priests lose the intention of doing what the Church does and no longer say valid Masses" (op. cit. pp. 285-286 [200-201]); cf. p. 143, 199 [96, 137]). Unhappily you get to speaking in a much less moderate way: "How can one hesitate," you say, “between a Mass which is a true Sacrifice and a Mass which is positively Protestant worship, a meal, a eucharist, a supper as Luther already said?" (Speech: "Pour l'homme de L'Egglise,” p. 20). In that last expression can be seen an excess of language which is certainly to be condemned, but the rest is already sufficiently serious.

A Catholic, in fact, may not cast doubt on the conformity with the doctrine of faith of a sacramental rite promulgated by the Supreme Pastor, above all when the rite is that of the Mass which is at the heart of the Church's life.

Of course, the link between the priest and the accomplishment of the sacrifice of the Mass in the consecration (and transubstantiation) must be preserved. But the Ordo Missae of Paul VI does that by reserving to the priest alone the words of consecration and the whole of the canon, entirely as in the old rite.

The new eucharistic liturgy does not impair faith in the real and substantial presence of Christ under the appearances of bread and wine. The number of genuflexions has been cut down, but they are kept as a sign of adoration at the culminating points of the Mass: consecration and communion. Traditional faith in the Real Presence is still perfectly signified by the elevation and the final prayer of the canon; it is emphasized in the distribution of communion, and clearly affirmed in many prayers after communion.

Finally, the sacrificial and propitiatory character of the Mass, reaffirmed absolutely in conformity with the Council of Trent in Proemium no 2 of the Institutio generalis of the new Roman Missal, is clearly and expressly signified not only in many prayers after the offering of the oblata but also in the Canons.

Furthermore, you yourself admit the validity of the new Ordo Missae, and doubt only the worth of the intention of many who use it. But your declarations about it and your opposition to its use spread among the faithful mistrust, confusion, and even rebellion.

You have often tried to justify your opposition by the need of fighting the abuses and disorders which in many countries accompany the adoption of the liturgical reform. But it is not by throwing suspicion on the orthodoxy of an Ordo Missae promulgated by the Supreme Authority in the Church that you will obtain a positive result.



3. The Sacrament of Confirmation

You have stated: "(The ministers of the sacrament of Confirmation) should specify the particular grace of the sacrament by which the Holy Spirit is given. If these words are not said: 'I confirm thee in the name of the Father. ..' there is no sacrament" (Un évêque parle, p. 287 [201] ). And you added: "Now there is a current formula, 'I sign thee with the Cross: receive the Holy Spirit'."

The new Ordo Confirmationis promulgated by Paul VI prescribes the following "form" of the sacrament: "Receive the mark of the Gift of the Holy Spirit" (1971); and the French Ritual published after this new Ordo translated it: "Receive the mark of the Holy Spirit who is given to thee." That translation is good.

In connection with what you think, Monseigneur, about the "form" of the sacrament of Confirmation, you have several times conferred Confirmation illicitly, and even performed “reconfirmations.” But are you aware that the "form" adopted by Paul VI is the form of the Byzantine rite of confirmation long before the Eastern Schism (it is known from as early as the fourth century)? And, inversely, that the formula “...Confirmo te," absent for many centuries, was taken up during the Middle Ages?

That affirmation of yours, quoted above, is therefore unjustifiable, and one could speak of an error objectively near to heresy. It amounts to saying that for centuries the Church did not have valid confirmation, and besides it disregards Catholic doctrine about the Church's power over sacramental rites provide the "substance" of the sacraments is safeguarded (cf. Conc. Trid. Sess. XXI, Doctrina de communione sub utraque specie et parvulorum, OS 1728; Pius XII, Const. Apost. Sacramentum Ordinis, 30.11.1947, OS 3857, 3858; Paul VI, Const. Apost. Divinae Consortium Naturae, 15.8. 1971, AAS LX111 (1971), p. 657-664).



4. The Sacrament of Penance

You stated, in an address on Good Friday, 1977: "General absolutions can arouse contrition but they are not sacramental” (Un évêque parle, p. 151 [103]). What you have in mind according to the context, is the Ordo for the reconciliation of many penitents with confession and general absolution. But for a long time the common opinion of theologians has been that in case of necessity a collective absolution without confession of all grave sins is valid and licit. The obligation remains of submitting directly to the power of the keys grave sins which could not be confessed. On 25 March 1944 the Sacred Penitentiary issued an Instruction declaring in what special cases those absolutions are licit. On 16 June 1972 the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith promulgated Pastoral norms for the giving of general absolution which were then inserted into the Praenotanda of the new Ordo paenitentiae (nn. 31-34). Those norms (which maintain the obligation of completing the absolution given collectively with the confession of grave sins) are entirely in line with the earlier Instruction. The abuses which have been noted in the practice of general absolution cannot justify your general assertion that those absolutions are not sacramental.



II – More General Assertions

1. Preliminary Remark

The more or less general declarations which you have made, Monseigneur, against the authority of the Second Vatican Council and against that of Pope Paul VI often treat of both those points at one and the same time. But we shall here deal first of all with your statements which concern only the authority of the Council or are concerned more directly with it, and then we shall deal with those concerning only the authority of Paul VI or concerning it principally.

Those declarations are the more serious in that they are joined with a praxis going in the same direction as they. Naturally the question arises: are we faced with a schismatic movement? That question must be examined objectively. We recall - for it can throw light on the examination-the definition of schismaticus given in Canon Law: "If (anyone) refuses to be subject to the Supreme Pontiff or refuses to be in communion with the members of the Church who are subject to him, he is a schismatic" (CIC, can. 1325, para. 2). There are then, two refusals (closely bound together) which make a Christian schismatic: the refusal (in practice) to remain a subject of the Sovereign Pontiff, and the refusal of communion with the members of the Church who remain subject to him.



2. The Authority of Vatican II

You are not content, Monseigneur, with opposing, as contrary to Tradition, the Declaration of Vatican II on religious liberty and certain isolated conciliar affirmations, you also condemn, in the Council's teaching, a spirit largely in opposition to the Christian message.

You write, in fact, in your book J'accuse le Concile (1976), p. 5 [vii], "Liberal and Modernist tendencies appeared (at the Council) and had a preponderating influence, thanks to a veritable conspiracy by the Cardinals from the banks of the Rhine supported, unfortunately, by Paul VI." Then, on pages 7-9 [10-12] of the same book: "We are justified in asserting…that the spirit which dominated the Council and inspired so many ambiguous and equivocal and even frankly erroneous texts was not the Holy Spirit but the spirit of the modern world, a Liberal, Teilhardian and Modernist spirit, opposed to the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ. All the official reforms and orientations of Rome are demanded and imposed in the name of the Council. But those reforms and orientations are frankly Liberal and Protestant in tendency...The good texts have been used to gain acceptance for texts which are equivocal and sown with mines and pitfalls. We have only one solution: to abandon those dangerous witnesses and to cling to firmly to Tradition, the official Magisterium of the Church during twenty centuries." Your Declaration of 21 November 1974 had already sounded the same note (Un évêque parle, p. 270-272 [189-190]).3

That kind of global condemnation of the Council (in spite of “good texts”) because of "Liberal and Modernist tendencies” which had "a preponderating influence" and which justify the statement that "the spirit which dominated the Council was a Liberal, Teilhardian and Modernist spirit opposed to the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ" so that "the only solution is to abandon those dangerous witnesses and cling firmly to Tradition"- we must say that that kind of global condemnation is remarkably serious.

For the voice of the Council was that of the whole episcopate in union with its head, the Successor of Peter, and it is the whole Roman episcopate subject to the Pope, with the faithful people, which accepts the Council and the conciliar reforms. If your words are taken in their full meaning, is there not justification for saying that you refuse, or are ready to refuse, communion with the members of the Church subject to the Pope?

Your praxis makes things no 'better. Indeed, you ordain priests against the express will of the Pope and without the "dimissorial letters" required by Canon Law; you send priests whom you have ordained to priories where they exercise their ministry without authorization from the Ordinary of the place; you deliver addresses designed to spread your ideas in dioceses where the bishop has refused his consent; with priests whom you have ordained, and who depend on you alone, you are beginning, whether you like it or not, to form an association ready to become a dissident ecclesial community.

In this connection we must refer to the astonishing declaration you made (Press Conference on 15 September 1976, in Itinéraires, Dec. 1976,pp. 126-127) on the subject of the administration of the Sacrament of Penance by the priests you ordained illicitly, and who have no faculties for hearing confessions. You judged that those priests possessed the jurisdiction provided by Canon Law in case of necessity: You said: "I think we are in extraordinary circumstances, not physical but moral, such that our young priests have the right to use those extraordinary faculties." Is not that to argue as though the legitimate hierarchy had ceased to exist in the regions where those priests happened to be?

True, in your more or less general declarations against the Council and the reforms demanded by it account must be taken of emotionalism, or, as you put it, "a feeling of indignation, no doubt excessive" (Un évêque parle, p. 292). It is also true that you have several times declared you will not consecrate a bishop, and that you have affirmed your conviction of "remaining faithful to the Catholic and Roman Church and to all the successors of Peter" (op. cit., p. 272). Yes. But is all that enough to rub out what goes before?



3. The Authority of Pope Paul VI

On the subject of the authority of Pope Paul VI and, more precisely, on that of the right attitude to take to his authority, you have made statements that differ from one another.

It comes to this, that you would seem, in texts taken in isolation, to challenge that authority in a very general way. So, in the sentence used as a motto for your book Un évêque parle...: "Satan's master-stroke is to have managed to throw (the whole of the Church) into disobedience to all tradition by obedience (to the Council and to the conciliar reform prescribed by the Holy See)." Similarly in this sentence from Fraternité sacerdotale S. Pie X, Lettre aux amis et bienfaiteurs, n0 9 (October 1975): "It is because we reckon that all our faith is endangered by the post-conciliar reforms and tendencies that we have the duty of 'disobeying' and of keeping the traditions. The greatest service we can render the Catholic Church, the successor of Peter, the salvation of souls and of our own soul, is to reject the reformed and Liberal Church, for we believe in Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, who is neither Liberal nor reformable." (Note. That text is reproduced in Un évêque parle, p. 323 [229], but in the first sentence the word "all" is omitted.)

On the other hand, you have texts which forcibly affirm your submission to the present successor of Peter, Pope Paul VI. You write: "Your Holiness knows perfectly what is the faith that I profess; it is that of your 'Credo'. You know also my profound submission to the Successor of Peter, which I renew into the keeping of Your Holiness" (Letter of 22 June 1976 [Apologia, pp. 196-7]). Also, you reply to the Abbé de Nantes who had suggested that the break "of a bishop with Rome” was "desirable": "Know that if a bishop breaks with Rome it will not be me" (Un eveque parle, p. 273. [Apologia, Vol. I, pp. 49-51)].

How are these different texts to be reconciled? You have often explained. You say, for example: "We are the most zealous defenders of his authority (that of the present Pope) as successor of Peter...We applaud the Pope when he echoes Tradition and is faithful to the transmission of the Deposit of Faith. We accept the novelties which conform intimately with Tradition and Faith. But we do not feel ourselves bound by obedience to novelties which run counter to Tradition and threaten our Faith” (Lettre aux amis bienfaiteurs, no 9, Oct. 1975; cf. Un évêque parle, p. 323 [Apologia, p. 152]). In short, you agree to obey the Pope insofar as he acts as the true successor of Peter, and you refuse to obey the Pope insofar as he acts in the opposite way. That applies (according to the texts quoted in this and in the preceding paragraph) to the whole of the post-conciliar reform of Paul VI.

That distinction is not an objective justification of your attitude. We have already said why your major objections to the Pope’s decisions in liturgical matters are not acceptable. It is appropriate here to recall, besides, that the Pope has “supreme power of jurisdiction” “not only in what concerns faith and morals but also in what belongs to the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world” (Conc. Vat. I, Const. Pastor Aeternus, DS 3064). The obedience due to him (ibid. DS 3064) is expressed notably in our time by the adhesion of all the bishops with the great majority of which Pope Paul Vi has put its provisions into effect. Should not that be enough to make you add a serious factor of doubt to what you and your friends proclaim so calmly, and to lead you finally to a liberating submission?



4. Conclusion of this Second Part

We remain ready to listen to your reply, but the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith considers that, by your declarations about submission to the Council and to the post-conciliar reforms of Paul VI – declarations with which your whole behaviour and especially you illicit ordinations of priests are in accord – you have fallen into grave disobedience, and that all these declarations and acts, by their own logic, lead to schism. The Congregations knows the good intentions you manifest, but thinks they do not justify your insubordination.



III – Final Remarks

This Annex, Monseigneur, is a “disputation”; its object, therefore, is limited. It says nothing of the merits you have accumulated in the course of a long missionary and episcopal career, and it does no more than allude to various kinds of attenuating circumstances as they affect your present situation. But the Congregation which is writing to you knows those things.

It ardently desires your full reconciliation with the Pope and with the Church. It thinks reconciliation possible, with a great grace of light which it begs God to grant you. It is sure that the Vicar of Christ wants only a genuine manifestation of submission on your part to welcome you as a father, and that he would desire everything of value in your work to be saved.

It believe that in choosing the way of submission you will bring a great benefit to the Church, you will grow in public esteem, and, what is supremely important, you will act as a true disciple of Christ who saved us with His humble obedience (Ph. 2:8).

Franc. Card. Seper
Prefect

Fr. Jérôme Hamer, O.P.
Secretary



1. A Bishop Speaks. Writings and Addresses of Mgr. Marcel Lefebvre (Edinburgh, 1976),230 pages. Available from The Angelus Press, Box 1387, Dickinson, Texas 77539.

2. The Totalitarian concepts in which the rights of the individual and the Church are totally subservient to the State.

3. See also, Apologia, Vol. I, pp. 38-40.

[Stone]

Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre
Volume 2, Chapter XV

Archbishop Lefebvre Concerning Religious Liberty

26 February 1978
Letter of Mgr. Lefebvre to Cardinal Seper

Your Eminence,

In reply to your letter on 28 January, please find enclosed the documents which I hope will supply the proof that it is out of attachment to the infallible doctrine of the Church and to the successors of Peter that we are compelled to express reserves in our words and our acts in face of the new and singular direction taken by the Holy See on the occasion of the Second Vatican Council and after the Council.

I remain at your disposal for any additional information in words or writing, and I beg you, Eminence, to accept the expression of my respect and my devotedness in Jesus and Mary.

+Marcel Lefebvre

Reply to the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Concerning the First Question: Religious Liberty

A) Prologue

Paragraphs 1 and 2 of the document are in contradiction with paragraph 3, and that is something which happens quite frequently in the conciliar documents, explicitly in the DH document, implicitly in others, and which causes confusion.

Indeed, if it is true that the Catholic Church is the unique true religion, all persons and all societies, especially the family and civil society, should recognize the Catholic Church as the unique true religion.

When the authorities constituted by God and by Our Lord Jesus Christ are Catholic, they have the duty of exercising their authority in the office they hold in favor of the unique true religion. To that end they are bound to pass laws, regulations and ordinances favoring the knowledge and the practice of the true religion, and defending it against what is opposed to it. Every Catholic authority has the duty of acting thus within its sphere, cooperating in the application of the eternal law of God of which the natural law is but the reflection.

That application has to be made with prudence and the gift of counsel, and so, in different cases, has to act with more or less of toleration, but also with a certain strictness and with the necessary application of the sanctions which go with every just law. There is no law without sanctions for those who break it. God gives us the example of that. If Our Lord spoke of the patience and mercy of His Father, He spoke also of His justice and His punishments.


B) Analysis of Article I

First reason:

Monseigneur Lefebvre reads DH with an unfavorable prejudice: but a reading of some key passages is sufficient to show that the “context” of the declaration does not allow a critical interpretation.

Thus in Lumen gentium

"This is the unique Church of Christ which in the Creed we avow as one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. After His Resurrection our Savior handed her over to Peter to be shepherded (Jn. 21:17), commissioning him and the other apostles to propagate and govern her (cf. Mt. 28:18 ff). Her he erected for all ages as the 'pillar and mainstay of the truth' (I. Tim. 3:15). This Church, constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter, and by the bishops in union with that successor, although many elements of sanctification and of truth can be found outside of her visible structure. These elements, however, as gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ, possess an inner dynamism toward Catholic unity." (No.8)

Similarly in DH:

“This one true religion subsists in the Catholic and Apostolic Church…"(No.1)

Reply

1. The text quoted from LG rightly has its place there, for it was necessary to teach that the Church, instituted, as it said, by Christ, is none other than the Catholic Church which can be easily recognized by "numerous and striking proofs” (Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, "Paix lntérieure des Nations” - Documents Pontificaux, Desclée - n. 132) and by its four "marks" which in themselves are a great and perpetual “motive of credibility" (Vatican I, Dei Filius, Dz 1793-1794).

Similarly, in DH it was above all necessary to teach that God does not wish to be honored except in the one true religion which He founded Himself, and which is the religion of the Catholic Church (cf. Pius IX, Apostolic Letter Multiplices inter of 10 June 1851, and Syllabus, prop. 21, Dl 1721). Pius IX can be quoted in this sense above all from his allocution to the Consistory on 18 March 1861:

"There is in fact only one true and holy religion, founded and instituted by Christ, mother and nurse of the virtues, destroyer of vice, guide to true happiness, which is called catholic, apostolic and Roman" (L'Eglise, same collection, n. 230).

2. The opportuneness of those two texts from Vatican II is undeniable, but the same cannot be said of their clarity:

"This (sole) Church (of Christ) subsists in the Catholic Church" (LG, 8).

"This one true religion subsists in the Catholic and Apostolic Church" (DH, 1).

These are new ways of talking! Why not simply say, with tradition, that this sole Church of Christ is identical with the Catholic Church? Further on it is said that elements of sanctification are found outside the visible confines of the Church, elements which belong of right to "the Church of Christ"; why not say "to the Catholic Church"? Finally, it is said that those elements "possess an inner dynamism toward Catholic unity"; why not say, much more clearly, that of themselves, for those who use them, they are an appeal to return to Catholic unity?

So, from the start, the "context" of Vatican II on the question of religious liberty is not as "clear" as it is made out to be!



C) Analysis of Article II

Second reason:

Vatican II by no means teaches the religious indifferentism condemned by the popes. On the contrary, it teaches:

-All men have the moral obligation of seeking the truth, of adhering to it (when they know it} and of ordering their life according to its requirements.

-The missionary apostolate is the duty of the faithful.

-The duty of the faithful to form their conscience by the "sacred and certain" doctrine of the Catholic Church, "by the will of Christ the teacher of truth." (DH, 2 & 14)


Reply

It is a blessing that Vatican II does not teach the individual indifferentism of the human person towards the true religion, that is, the moral freedom, or each one's right, "to embrace the religion he prefers, or to follow no religion if none pleases him” (Immortale Dei, PIN, 143)!

But what Vatican II does teach is the indifferentism of the State1 towards the true religion; and that will lead sooner or later to individual indifferentism in religious matters. (That we know from our experience of modern laicized states and societies.)

We present:

1. what Vatican II teaches (DH, 13)
2. which is contrary to the "public law" of the Church.

1. What Vatican II teaches expressly about the public law of the Church, that is, her relationship with the State and civil society.

  -- "The freedom of the Church is the fundamental principle governing relations between the Church and public authorities and the    whole civil order." (A)

  -- "As the spiritual authority appointed by Christ the Lord with the duty, imposed by divine command, of going into the whole world and preaching the Gospel to every creature, the Church claims freedom for herself in and before every public authority."(B)

  -- "The Church also claims freedom for herself as a society of men with the right to live in civil society in accordance with the demands of the Christian faith." ©

  -- "When the principle of religious freedom...is implemented sincerely in practice, only then does the Church enjoy in law and in fact those stable conditions which give her the independence necessary for fulfilling her divine mission." (D)

-- "At the same time the Christian faithful, in common with the rest of men, have the civil right of freedom from interference in leading their lives according to their conscience. A harmony exists therefore between the freedom of the Church and that religious freedom which much be recognized as the right of all men and all communities and must be sanctioned by constitutional law." (E)


2. Those propositions are contrary to the traditional teaching of the Church on the Church's public law.

1) "The freedom of the Church is the fundamental principle." (A)

NO! Freedom is not the fundamental principle, nor a fundamental principle in the matter. The public law of the Church is founded on the State's duty to recognize the social royalty of Our Lord Jesus Christ!2 The fundamental principle which governs the relations between Church and State is the "He must reign" of St. Paul (1 Cor. 15:25) - the reign that applies not only to the Church but must be the foundation of the temporal City. That is what the Church 'teaches, and it is what she claims as her first and chief right in the City:

The City will not be built otherwise than as God has built it; society will not be erected if the Church does not lay the foundations and direct its work; civilization will not be planned, nor will the new City be built, in the clouds. It has been, and it still is - it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It needs only to be established and ceaselessly re-established on its natural and divine foundations against the ever-renewed attacks of unhealthy utopianism, of revolt and impiety; OMNIA INSTAURARE IN CHRISTO (St. Pius X, Letter on the Sillon, 29 August 1910, n.11).

Leo XIII was teaching that doctrine before St. Pius X:

Heads of State must hold the name of God holy, and amongst their chief duties must count that of favoring religion, protecting it with their goodwill, shielding it with the effective authority of law, and decreeing or deciding nothing against its integrity (Immortale Dei, PIN, 131; cf. also Libertas, PIN, 203).

And that religion is, of course, the only true one:

As, therefore, the profession of only one religion ("unius religionis”) is necessary in the City, that one must be professed which alone is true and which is recognized without difficulty (Libertas, loc. cit.).

Leo XIII, like his successors, and like St. Thomas Aquinas, sees a double ground for the State's duty to religion:

1) the divine origin of civil society (Immortale Dei, PIN 130); and 2) the State's special purpose, the temporal common good, which should be a positive help to the citizens in their approach to Heaven!

Civil society...ought, while encouraging public prosperity, to look to the good of the citizens not only by putting no obstacle in the way but also by providing every possible facility for the pursuit and the acquisition of that supreme unchangeable good to which the governors themselves aspire. The first provision is that of respect for the holy and inviolable practice of religion, whose observances unite man to God (Immortale Dei, PIN, 131).

That is found also in St. Thomas:

So, because the goal of that life which deserves here below to be called the good life is heavenly beatitude, it belongs on that score to the function of royalty (we say "of the State") to provide the good life for the many in terms of what will obtain for them the beatitude of heaven; that is to say, it should prescribe (in its order, which is the temporal) what leads to beatitude, and, as far as possible, proscribe what is opposed to it (De Regimine Principum, B 1, ch XV).

Finally, from Pius XII:

That common good, that is to say, the establishment of normal and stable conditions of public life, such that both individuals and families can live their life worthily, with regularity and happiness, according to the law of God, that common good is the end and the rule of the State and its offices (Allocution to the Roman aristocracy, 8 January 1947, PIN, 981).

And what is the law of God but the law of His Church? A letter from the Secretariat of State to the Archbishop of Sao Paulo, 14 April 1955, gives a good summary of that doctrine:

It is not only individuals who have the duty of paying to God the tribute of their homage and gratitude for benefits received, but also families, nations, and the State as such. The Church in her wisdom and maternal solicitude has always inculcated that duty .The Ember Days, amongst other things, demonstrate that in their liturgical language. But now that understanding of the Church has been dimmed or almost lost in modern society, and given the consequences of religious agnosticism in states, it is necessary to start again and bring all nations, united in brotherhood at the foot of the altar, to reaffirm in public their belief in God and to utter that praise which is due to the supreme Sovereign of the nations.

And who is "the supreme Sovereign of the nations" but Our Lord Jesus Christ? And what is praise at the altar but the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the greatest religious act of the Catholic Church?

That, as can be seen, is a long way from just the "freedom of the Church" which is all that is demanded by Vatican II which takes a part of the doctrine and abandons the rest in a scandalous silence. The Church of Vatican II certainly affirmed its wish not to ask for more than "freedom" and to forget the public law of the Church and the social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in its closing message "to rulers" (8 Dec. 1965):

In your earthly and temporal city, God constructs mysteriously His spiritual and eternal City, His Church. And what does this Church ask of you after close to two thousand years of experiences of all kinds in her relations with you, the powers of the earth? What does the Church ask of you today? She tells you in one of the major documents of this Council. She asks of you only liberty, the liberty to believe and to preach her faith, the freedom to love her God and serve Him, the freedom to live and to bring to men her message of life.3


2) Continuation of the same subject in passage from DH quoted in (B)

The passage from DH quoted above in (B) is substantially the same as a fine passage from Quas Primas of Pius XI which we owe it to ourselves to cite:

...The Church, constituted by Christ as a perfect society, demands, in virtue of a natural right which she cannot renounce, full freedom and immunity in face of the civil power, in the exercise of the commission given to her of teaching, directing and leading to eternal beatitude all those who belong to the kingdom of Christ… (Quas Primas, at the end). 

 

But Pius XI is careful not to say that the Church demands nothing more than that! It is undeniable that the freedom of the Church in relation with the civil power is one of her rights, but it is not the only one-far from it! "Freedom of the Church" can indeed be demanded from totalitarian civil powers, regalist formerly and now anti-Christian, which attack that freedom, but it cannot be presented, without a serious amputation of doctrine, as "the fundamental principle" of the Church's public law. Pius XI himself saw that an assertion of the Church's "right to liberty" required to be completed with a demand for what can be called the "primacy" of the Church, which is a consequence of that of her Head, Our Lord Jesus Christ (cf. Mt. 28: 18):

The annual celebration of this feast (of Christ the King) will remind States that magistrates and rulers are bound, just like citizens, to offer public worship to Christ and to obey Him...For His royalty requires that the whole State be governed by the commandments of God and by Christian principles in its legislation, in the way it does justice, and also in training youth with sound doctrine and good moral discipline (ibid. loc. cit.).

That could not be stronger or more explicit!

An objection:

Yes, some will say, Pope Pius XI is most explicit, but he would not write that encyclical today. Times have changed, and we are pluralistic!

Or:

In our days, there is no point in the Catholic religion being considered the unique State religion, to the exclusion of all other religions (Proposition 771 condemned in the Syllabus, Dz 1777).


Praise is due to certain nominally Catholic countries. where the la w has provided that strangers coming to live there shall enjoy the public exercise of their particular religions (ibid. Proposition 78, condemned).

Or.

By the Declaration on Religious Liberty, by the Pastoral constitution Gaudium et spes, On the Church in the Modern World, - a significant title, this! - the Church of Vatican II has openly placed herself in the pluralist world of today ; and, without disowning anything great that there may have been, has cut the ropes which were mooring her to the banks of the Middle Ages. You cannot stay stuck at a particular moment in history (Fr. Yves Congar, Challenge to the Church, p. 46).

We answer:

That is to try and bend the public law of the Church to suit the actual situation. It is even worse than that: it is to make the apostasy of the nations an inevitable necessity of History. But the Church has been teaching for nineteen centuries that her public law is as unchangeable as her faith, because it is founded on it, and that the only inevitable necessity in the history of mankind is that Jesus Christ must reign.

In consequence, the Church (of Vatican II as of Vatican I and of Nicaea – or else "the Church of Vatican II" is not the Church of Vatican I and Nicaea) has the duty of proclaiming her law in all its fulness and all its force in face of the world even when it is laicized, materialist, Liberal, indifferent, agnostic or atheist; and all the more forcefully because it is more laicized, materialist, Liberal, indifferent, agnostic or atheist! It is a question of FAITH! Can the Church cease or hesitate to proclaim her faith in the social kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ? It is a truth of the Catholic Faith! Nor should she hesitate to proclaim her public law, that is to say, her primacy, her  sovereignty  in the human city! So far are we from echoing that apostate sentence: "the Pope would not write that encyclical today," that we are convinced that today more than ever the world needs that encyclical, that men are thirsting for the basic truth that "He must reign-oportet illum regnare"! That is why we affirm that the mouth of priest or bishop should today have no greater truth of faith to proclaim than "oportet illum regnare"! We are sure of that and we have the support of these words of Dom Guéranger:

There is a grace attached to the full and entire confession of the Faith. That confession, the Apostle tells us, is the salvation of those who make it, and experience teaches that it is also the salvation of those who hear it (Dom Guéranger, Le sens chrétien de I'Histoire).

3) Vatican II claims "the liberty of the Church as an association of men in civil society" ©5

Here, according to Vatican II, is a second reason for claiming the liberty of the Church: she, like every association of men in the State, has that right; by the same title as the other associations of civil society she has "the right to live" (according to her principles, which in this case are the precepts of the Christian law).

That is to give a completely false idea of the Church - to consider her only as a legitimate association among others in the bosom of civil society. The doctrine of the Church is different: the Church is not just a legitimate society, she is a perfect and supreme society which cannot be likened without blasphemy and grave injustice to "other associations in civil society."

If, in laicized or atheistic regimes, the Church is in fact reduced to the rank of one association among others in society, she cannot at once expect or claim more than equality in "common law" with other associations in the city;6 but that precarious solution due to a very special situation (even if it is widespread) can in no way be considered as the general and integral doctrine, which is quite different. Here it is:

The Church, which is a perfect society by the same title as the State, has of herself all the means for a stable existence and for the independent attainment of her end (cf. Immortale Dei, PIN, 134).

And as the end to which the Church is tending is by far the noblest of all, so her power surpasses all others and can in no way be inferior or subject to the civil power (ibid.).

Thus, to present the Church as an "association of men… in the bosom of civil society" is to rank her with imperfect societies which, each in its secondary and subordinate place, cooperate in producing in the City the temporal common good. It is, consequently, to rob her of her status of perfect society, and of supreme society in virtue of the superiority of her end (eternal beatitude) over that of the State (the temporal common good). In that connection, here is a fine passage from Jacques Maritain (before his "conversion" to Liberalism):

We must affirm as a truth above all the vicissitudes of time the supremacy of the Church over the world and over all terrestrial powers. On pain of radical disorder she must guide the peoples towards the last end of human life, which is also that of States, and, to do that, she must direct, in terms of the spiritual riches entrusted to her, both rulers and nations (Primauté du spirituel, Plon, 1927, n. 23).

Instead of reducing the Church, under "common law," to the status of an the associations in the city, Catholic doctrine proclaims her "primacy," that is to say, in precise classical terms, the "indirect power" of the Church over the State because of the indirect subordination of the ends of the two societies. That has been shown, after St. Thomas (already quoted), by Jacques Maritain (Primauté du spirituel), and Journet (La juridiction de l'Eglise sue la cité), and before them by the great Roman teachers of recent times, before Vatican II.

So Cardinal Billot, S. J., De Ecclesia Christi, Vol. II: "On the relationship of the Church with civil society," q. XVIII, para. 5:

The Church received from Christ full authority over the baptized to lead them to their end, which is eternal salvation, and therefore in societies of Christians the secular power by divine law is indirectly subject to the Church's jurisdiction.

The author refers to Suarez, Defensio Fidei, Bk 3, ch. 22, and to the condemnation of Gallican ideas by Innocent XI, Alexander VIII and finally Pius VI in his Bull Auctorem fidei against the Synod of Pistoia. In the Bull the following opinion is condemned:

In temporal matters kings...and princes are by God's decree subject to no ecclesiastical power...directly or indirectly...and that opinion is necessary for public tranquillity and is as beneficial to the Church as to the State. It must be retained, for it agrees with the word of God, the tradition of the Fathers, and the example of the saints.

Similarly, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, 0. P., De revelatione, Bk II, ch. 15, a. 4:

Of the duty, for civil authority and society, of accepting divine revelation when it is adequately proposed.

The author refers to St. Thomas and to Leo XIII {already quoted), and in answer to an objection to the indirect power in question he writes:

Temporal good is not a means fitted to the attainment of a supernatural good, but is subordinate to it, for "we are helped by the temporal to move towards beatitude, in that by it the life of the body is maintained and it is an instrumental aid to acts of virtue" (1111 q83a6). Indeed, if that subordination were removed, temporal goods would be the first object of desire and we should make them our end, as happens in an irreligious or atheistic society.

And in answer to another objection which said that the liberty of the true religion was sufficiently protected in the liberty of religions (which is what Vatican II says: see the passage "D") Fr. Garrigou sets out the Catholic doctrine:

Liberty of religions allows us to frame an argument ad hominem, against those, that is to say, who profess liberty of religions yet harass the true Church (secular and tending to socialism) and directly or indirectly forbid its worship (communist societies). That argument ad hominem is correct, and the Catholic Church does not disdain it but rather urges it in defence of her rightful liberty. But from that it does not follow that liberty of religions, considered in itself, can be defended unconditionally by Catholics, for in itself it is absurd and wicked: truth and error cannot have the same rights.

Finally, the classical textbooks of theology teach the indirect power of the Church over the State: Zubizarreta, Bk I, n. 568; Hervé, Bk I, n. 537:

The State should be subordinate to the Church, negatively and positively, but indirectly : Catholic Doctrine.

Also, the Syllabus condemns this proposition (n. 24):

The Church has no power to impose her authority, and she has no temporal authority either direct or indirect.

To conclude: The "liberty of the Church as an association of men within civil society" is an argument ad hominem directed at powers which attack her public law on that point, so that she is reduced to expect from them in the present nothing but the common law right to existence of all legitimate associations, those, that is to say, that are in conformity with the natural law.7 But it is blasphemy and apostasy to turn that argument into an absolute and fundamental principle of the public law of the Church. The popes themselves have formally condemned the attitude of states even nominally Catholic which reduce the Church to the common law status:

In short they treat the Church as though she had neither the character nor the rights of a perfect society, and were merely an association like the others existing in the State (Immortale Dei, PIN, 144).

Before Leo XIII, Pius VII had written to the Bishop of Boulogne in France about the Charter of 1814:

There is no need to write at length, when addressing a bishop like yourself, to point out to you that a mortal wound has been inflicted on the Catholic religion in France by that article (Article 22); the very fact of establishing liberty of all religions without distinction is to confuse truth with error, and to put on the level of heretical sects and even of Jewish perfidy the holy and immaculate Spouse of Christ, the Church outside of which there cannot be salvation (Letter Post tam diutumitas, 29 April 1814, PIN, 19).

What would these popes say if they saw that Vatican II attributes such ideas to the Church itself and even puts them under her patronage?8


4) "When the principle of religious freedom...is implemented sincerely in practice...only then does the Church enjoy in law and in fact those stable conditions which give her the independence necessary for fulfilling her divine mission." (DH)

According therefore to DH, if the Church has that liberty common to the other religions in the State she has the necessary independence. That proposition continues to show the same "partiality" in doctrine, and in addition an unrealistic view of the effectiveness of "mere liberty" for the Church's accomplishment of her mission.

a)  The partiality of the doctrine of DH is clear from the fact that this document wants no more for the Church than independence vis-à-vis the State. But Catholic doctrine does not stop there: it maintains that the Church has a right to the help of the State in every way in which the State, in its sphere, can give positive aid to the Church's mission. The State owes that aid to the Church because it is indirectly subordinate to her by reason of the Church's end (Cf. above, “C”). That aid is not just negative ("not to prevent") but above all positive ("to favor in every way"), as Leo XIII (Immortale Dei, PIN, 131) and the theologian Hervé, (above).

DH has a wholly partial and unjust idea of the State: it sees in the State nothing but an antagonist, in face of which the Church should not and cannot ask for more than independence. It does not even imagine that there could be a system of union and concord in which these two societies established by God could give one another intimate mutual aid, each in its domain: the Church fostering respect in the citizens for authority "which comes from God," the State helping and protecting the Church with public institutions founded on Catholic principles such as until recently (before they were abrogated in an application of Vatican II) were enjoyed in totally Catholic countries such as Colombia, Spain, and the Swiss cantons Fribourg, Tessin, and Valais.

That condition of "union between Church and State" is indeed the one which the Church has always considered the most apt for the realization of the social kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ and therefore the best disposed to the growth of both societies, the temporal and the spiritual. That is the teaching of the popes and theologians already quoted: it is Catholic doctrine that the best system is the union of the two societies. Leo XIII puts it this way:

Between the two powers there must be a system of well ordered relations, analogous to the system in man which constitutes the union of body and soul. (Immortale Dei, PIN, 137); cf. Libertas, PIN, 200: ...and that for the greater advantage of the two partners, for separation is particularly disastrous for the body, for it deprives it of life.

b) It is grossly unrealistic to think that Catholic truth, in law and in fact, would make better progress relying on its intrinsic efficacy and its "liberty" than with the help of a State that respects Christ.

It may be true that in a non-Catholic country the common law, or a "mere liberty" situation may provide the Church in fact with the minimum conditions for action, sufficient for her development; but that situation may not be claimed by the Church generally and in any hypothesis; and it is in the short term ineffective and disastrous, as it presupposes that the State is secular and it leads sooner or later to the general secularization of institutions and customs - that is the present experience of all the former Catholic or just "Christian" countries, which are now moving towards advanced secularization and atheism.9

Following Lamennais, Montalembert (in the nineteenth century) and the Jacques Maritain converted to Liberalism, Fr. John Courtney Murray, a peritus at the Council and an expert on the subject, saw the present and future prosperity of the Church in the "liberty alone" situation, and not in the state of union, which he called "medieval Christianity," the state, so he said, which Leo XIII "had not abandoned altogether," but which for him "had never been more than a hypothesis."10 Fr. Yves Congar shares the same views when he writes:

Catholics had understood already in the nineteenth century that the Church would gain more support for its freedom in the affirmed belief of the faithful than in the favor of princes (Challenge to the Church, p. 44).

But those "Catholics" were the Liberal Catholics whose propositions were condemned at the time. And to say that Leo XIII stated his doctrine only as a "hypothesis"11 is not to know how to read the texts.


5) "That religious freedom...must be recognized as the right of all men and all communities and must be sanctioned by constitutional law." (E)

DH says explicitly in this place (as in others) that the State should grant freedom of religions (though it takes care to avoid using that term, which is at least temerarious since its condemnation by Pius IX. But no matter! The reality is the same!) But that alleged right has been condemned by the popes as contrary to the public law of the Church which is "imprescriptible." So the condemnation remains, in spite of the vicissitudes of the times or the "changes in the historico-social context," and whatever may be the new motivations with which an attempt is made to justify it in our day.

There is an immediate objection, presented by different authors and going unchanged from the one to the other - Fr. Congar (op. cit.), Fr. Andre-Vincent (La liberté religieuse: droit fondamental; Téqui, 1976), and, before them, Fr. Jérôme Hammer ("Histoire du texte de la Déclaration" in Vatican II, la liberté religieuse, Cerf. 1967, p. 66).

This is the substance of it:

Liberty of religions was condemned by the popes of the nineteenth century because of its motivation in the history of that time, namely the individualism of the rights of man made into an absolute. The references given are Leo XIII, Immortale Dei (PIN, 143) and Pius IX, Quanta Cura (PIN, 39-40). In the twentieth century, the argument goes on, Vatican II came and was able to proclaim that liberty of religions, baptized "religious liberty," because there had been a change in the "historico-social context," and because there were other reasons which justified it, for example the dignity of the human person which was almost unknown to the nineteenth-century popes!

Answer:

1. If there are reasons which justify religious liberty today, perhaps tomorrow, when the historico-social context has changed again, those reasons will not apply, and there will be other contrary reasons for condemning religious liberty. So, one of two things: either the doctrine of the Church must be continually changing, to adapt itself, or the doctrine of "the Church of Vatican II" is condemned as being unadapted and already outdated. The first solution is absurd, the second is interesting...

2. To go deeper than the argument ad hominem or the reductio ad absurdum, it can be shown that the argument is specious: in fact, liberty of religions was not condemned by the popes of the nineteenth century because of its motive, or because of its premise which is individualism, etc. Rather it is the individualism of the rights of man which is condemned because of its consequences, one of which is liberty of religions. Liberty of religions is condemned on its own account as being

1) contrary to the true dignity of the human person: everybody would be free to cleave to error (Immortale Dei, PIN, 143), and thus to decline from his dignity (ibid., PIN 149);

2) contrary to the public law of the Church, which is unjustly or abusively relegated to the rank of "an association like the others existing in the State" (ibid., PIN, 144 ). See above, our analysis of the texts.

Fr. Jérôme Hamer's arguments, copied by others, can be seen through quite easily, and it is false from top to bottom! But who is going to refer to the texts and read them carefully? But the fact is that Vatican II, in DH, and all the chorus- masters in the business, reject the public law of the Church.

A historian of the Council, Ralph Wiltgen, gives a very good picture of the two opposing positions in the Council, one of which triumphed at the expense of the other, which he calls "more traditional"12:

The fundamental thesis of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity was that State neutrality should be considered as the normal condition, and that there should be cooperation between State and Church only "in particular circumstances."13 This principle the International Group could not in conscience accept. To justify its stand, the Group cited Pope Pius XII's statement that the Church considered the principle of collaboration between Church and State as "normal," and that it considered ''as an ideal the unity of people in the true religion, and unanimity of action" between church and State. 14

It is true that Pius XII went on as follows:

But she (the Church) knows that for some time events have been developing rather in the other direction, that is to say, towards multiplicity of religious confessions and views of life within the same national community, in which Catholics are a more or less strong minority. History may find it interesting and even surprising to discover in the United States one example among others of the way the Church manages to spread in the most disparate situations.

But that particular case makes no change in what the Church counts as "normal" and "ideal" in comparison with an exception arising from "special circumstances." An actual state of affairs tending more and more to the contrary to what is according to law, nevertheless leaves the law intact. Pius XII is simply remarking on the progressive and general secularization of the nations where Christ formerly reigned by right and in fact, and after that he notes that paradoxically, in certain countries where Christ had never reigned perfectly according to the Catholic "thesis," the Church succeeded in spreading. The relative success of the Church in those countries, which twenty years later seems to us very ephemeral-especially since the Council which was followed by a spectacular halt in conversions to Catholicism-that relative success in no way weakens the Catholic "thesis." Nor is it weakened by the defeat inflicted on religion in the old Catholic countries by the concerted and constant attack of the Counter-Church forces, especially Freemasonry and international Communism. What is surprising in the retreat of the Catholic religion when the Church of Vatican II no longer teaches that Our Lord Jesus Christ should reign? "For truth is dashed to pieces by the sons of men" (Ps. 10:11)!

In Vatican II, then, we see a complete reversal of ideas within Catholic doctrine: the normal law and the normal situation (the State officially Catholic) become "special circumstances," while the exception (pluralism) becomes the law and should be protected in the juridical order of the City.

We add a comment on a text (from DH) which is parallel to our passage "D":

It is a question of "the liberty of religious groups." DH acknowledges that all "religious groups" have a function and two rights:

a) The function of worshipping the supreme divinity, Numen supremum. That has an evil sound-the worship of the Supreme Being! The Church of Vatican II admits that all religions without distinction have the power of honoring God, a power which belongs to the Catholic religion alone. In short the Church of Vatican II confounds Buddha, the God of Mohammad, and Our Lord Jesus Christ in a single "Supreme Deity," or at least it thinks that the State satisfies its religious duty in that indifferentism.

b) The right to the public exercise of their worship.

c) The other rights necessary for their existence and their propagation, such as "the public manifestation of their faith." Vatican II, therefore, proclaims the right to scandal and the right to propagate error.


By way of epilogue:

That in which the Church of Vatican II no longer believes

A  wicked crowd clamors
It will not have Christ as King,
But with our ovations we proclaim You
The sovereign King of all.
To You the heads of the nations
Should bring public honor;
Rulers and judges should revere You,
Laws and culture should manifest You.
Royal standards should shine
By dedication to You.
Citizens should submit country and home
To Your gentle sway.

Those stanzas from the First Vespers of the Feast of Christ the King in the Divine Office have been faked or wholly suppressed. "Initiated by a decree of the sacred ecumenical Council Vatican II, promulgated with the authority of Pope Paul VI."

A Careful Reading of the Texts

Leo XIII 
Immortale Dei (PIN, 143-144) 

1) Condemnation of individualist, indifferentist, rationalism, and of the indifferentism and monism of the State.

" All men...are...equal among themselves, everyone can manage so well on his own that he is in no way  subject to the authority of others, he is perfectly  free  to think what he likes on  any subject and do  what  he likes... 

"Public authority is nothing but the will of the people  ... hence the people is judged to be the source of all  law...it follows that the State thinks it  has no obligation to God, professes no official religion, is not  bound  to prefer one religion to the others..."


2) Consequence: "the right to freedom of religion" In the State. 

“...but that it must attribute to all religions equality at  law, provided discipline in public affairs is not damaged. In consequence everyone is free to be his own judge in matters of religion, to embrace the religion he prefers, or to choose none if none pleases him."


3) Consequence of this "new right": a blow  to the public law  of the Church.

"Given that the State rests on these principles  which are today in such high repute, it is easy to see to what place the Church has been unjustly relegated. Where  practice accords with such  doctrines, the Catholic  religion in the State is put on terms of equality or even inferiority with societies which are foreign to it. ..In short, they treat the Church as though she had neither the character nor the rights of a perfect society, and as though she were merely an association like the others existing in the State."   


Pius IX
Quanta Cura (PIN, 39-40)

1)  Denunciation of rationalism and its application to the State
" All men...are...equal among themselves, everyone can manage so well on his own that he is in no way  subject to the authority of others, he is perfectly  free  to think what he likes on  any subject and do  what  he likes... 

“Today many apply to civil society the impious and absurd principle of naturalism, and dare to teach that for the best form of government and for the progress of civil life it is absolutely necessary that human society be constituted and governed taking no more account of religion than if it did not exist, or at least making no difference between the true religion and the  false religions."


2) Consequence: the right to religious liberty in the State.

“...but that it must attribute to all religions equality at  law, provided discipline in public affairs is not damaged. In consequence everyone is free to be his own judge in matters of religion, to embrace the religion he prefers, or to choose none if none pleases him." 

"And contrary to the doctrine of Holy Scripture, of the Church and of the Holy Fathers, they have no hesitation in affirming that 'the best  condition of society is that in which there is no recognition of a duty of authority to repress with  legal penalties the violators of the Catholic  religion, except insofar as public order requires it...' And: 'Liberty of conscience and of worship  is a  right proper to every man. That right  should be  proclaimed and guaranteed in every well organized society. .’ "   


3 ) Consequence of this "new right";  a blow to the Church

Pius IX denounces the latest opinion, quoted here in 2), as: "an erroneous opinion, disastrous in the last degree to the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls," He says no more than that, but he adds further on that it amounts to "putting religion outside society."


Conclusion: the "new right," this "right to religious freedom in the State," is condemned by these two Popes essentially because, as a consequence or immediate corollary, it damages the public law of the Church. They are not condemning it because of its historical motivation at that moment, that is, because of individualist rationalism or State monism.



D) Analysis of Article III

Third reason:

The DH document has left out all the distinctions necessary to make it admissible: What is meant by religious liberty when we say that the human person has the right to religious liberty? Just as it stands, that sentence is ambiguous-there can be a moral right only to truth, not to error. If it is a question of a civil right, that can only mean tolerance and not a strict right. That is what Pope Leo XIII says in his Encyclical Libertas.

The reasons given for this right of the human person confuse natural or psychological liberty with moral liberty .The beginning of the Encyclical Libertas is quite clear on this subject. Natural liberty is liberty considered in its essence, with no consideration of the end it should seek. As soon as it begins to operate it performs human acts which come under the law and have a moral aspect which puts liberty under an authority-none other than the authority of God in which all human authorities share, each within its limits.

The exercise of that liberty extends to different acts about which the DH document is silent. Distinctions should be made between internal acts and external acts, private external acts and public external acts.

All those acts come under the authority of God. For Catholics, the Church has power either in the internal forum or the external forum as stated in Canon Law. The family has a right over the external acts, private and public, of its children until they come of age. The State has a duty and a right over public external acts as they affect the common good which necessarily involves a relation with the one true religion.

These duties and rights are stated in many documents of the Holy See, and they are confirmed in the Church 's practice by concordats and by the constant reminder to Heads of State of their duties to the one and only true religion.

Paragraph 3 implies the neutrality of the State if the State has to allow "the profession, even public of a religion." That statement is incredible, for it means the public profession of error. DH is most explicit on the subject. Its paragraph 4 is absolutely scandalous:

In addition, it comes within the meaning of religious freedom that religious bodies should not be prohibited from freely undertaking to show the special value of their doctrine in what concerns the organization of society and the inspiration of the whole of human activity.

No Catholic worthy of the name can subscribe to anything so infamous.

Quotation from Gregory XVI Inter praecipuas-8 May 1844:

From messages and documents received a short time ago we have proof that men from different sects met last year in New York, and on 12 June they formed a new Association called "The Christian Alliance" for the reception of members from all countries and all nations, backed by other Societies founded to assist it, with the common purpose of inoculating the Romans and the other peoples of Italy, in the name of Religious Liberty, with a senseless love of indifference in matters of Religion...They are determined to favor all peoples with freedom of conscience, or, rather, freedom of error... and they think they cannot do that unless they first spread their work among Italian and Roman citizens, whose authority with other peoples and their action upon them would be a powerful support.

What is meant by "coercitio"?

There is physical constraint and moral constraint.

Those constraints are always employed in any society against those who oppose the application of the laws. If the laws are just and in conformity with the natural and positive divine law, it is right for the legislator to secure observance of the law first of all by moral constraint, fear of punishment, and later by physical constraint, as God Himself does.

If Catholic governments perform their duty, as all popes have required them to do, they ought to favor the Catholic religion and therefore to protect it, as far as possible, against the false religions, against immorality and the scandalous ways of those depraved religions, and that not only in the interests of the Catholic religion but also for their own unity and continued existence.

That is what the Church and Catholic rulers have always understood and professed. It would be insulting to the Church, and to the rulers who have put these principles into practice, to make out that they were ignorant of "the transcendence of the person, the innate manner of tending to the truth, and the liberty of the act of faith "-what the DH document calls human dignity.


E) Judgement on this Article III


1- Article III is contrary to the documents of the Church's Magisterium.

These conclusions are the same as those asserted constantly in Pontifical Documents. Some references are given below:

Articles 77 and 78 of the Syllabus:

77- It is no longer expedient, these days, that the Catholic religion be considered the unique State religion', to the exclusion of all other religions.

78- There is good reason why, in some Catholic countries, the law has provided that strangers who settle there should enjoy the public practice of their particular religion.

Propositions IV and V of the Synod of Pistoia condemned by Pius VI in the Bull Auctorem fidei.

Numerous references to this subject in the Collection of Papal Documents (Solesmes), La Paix intérieure des Nations, especially in the logical index, Le Libéralisme Politique and La Cité chrétienne.


2. Article III is contrary to the constant practice of the Church.

On the other hand, if paragraph 3 is true it condemns the Holy Office, Sanctum Officium Inquisitionis, which was established for the defense of the Catholic faith and which has never hesitated to call on the secular arm against notorious and scandalous heretics.

To affirm No.3, which in fact sums up the DH document, is therefore contrary not only to the whole of the time- honored practice of the Holy Office whose Prefect is always the Pope in person, but to all the public law of the Church, in theory and in practice.

Here are references on the subject:

Fontes selecti Historiae juris publici ecclesiastici-Ecclesia et Status, Lo Grasso, Romae, Universitas Gregoriana: No.26, No.52 (St. Augustine on coercion), No.53, No. 54.

Bull Inter Coetera of Alexander VI, No. 559-No. 707, 708.

Devoirs des Princes, No. 71Q. Devoirs de l'Etat envers Dieu et envers l'Eglise, 793.4.825.


3. Article III is contrary to the public law of the Church.

Silvio Romani, Elementa juris Ecclesiae publici fundamentalis-De Ecclesia et civitate, p. 252, as well as the whole bibliography at the beginning of the work.

The public law of the Church is based on the most elementary principles of Revelation and theology, and it requires pagan states to admit the mission of the Church and her freedom to teach, and, of Catholic States, that they help the Church in her duty of sanctifying and governing the faithful and protecting their faith against the scandals of heretical and immoral aberrations.

To ask rulers to permit liberty of error, liberty of religions, is to force them into neutrality, secularism and pluralism, and that always turns to the advantage of error. Pontifical Documents are explicit on that subject.


F) Disastrous Consequences of the Abandonment of the Traditional Doctrine of the Church about the Duties of the City to the Church

- Interventions of the Holy See for the liberty of false religions, by the suppression in the Constitutions of Catholic States of the first article stating that the Catholic religion alone is officially recognized as the State religion.

Examples from Colombia, Spain, Italy, and the Swiss can- tons of Valais and Tessin, where the Nunciatures encouraged the suppression of that article in the Constitutions.


- Intervention by the Holy Father himself in his discourse after the Council and on the occasion of the official reception at the Vatican of the King of Spain, basing himself on the document on Religious Liberty:

"What does the Church ask of you today? She tells you in one of the major documents of this Council: she asks of you only liberty."     

One cannot prevent oneself hearing that as an echo of the statements of Lamennais when he was founding his journal, L 'Avenir (Dictionnaire de Theologie Catholique, Vol. 9, first column, 526-527):

Many Catholics in France love liberty. The Liberals therefore should come to an understanding with them to demand full and absolute liberty of opinion, of doctrine, of conscience, of worship, and of all civil liberties without privilege or restriction. On their side Catholics should understand that Religion needs only one thing -Liberty.

It is enough to read Marcel Prélot's Le Libéralisme cathalique, published in 1969, to see how the Liberals have turned those statements to account.

The condemnation of Lamennais by Pope Gregory XVI in his Encyclical Mirari vos shows the opposition between Paul VI's predecessors and himself.

Those declarations are echoed in the words of Cardinal Colombo of Milan: "The State cannot be other than secular." I have not heard of his being reprehended by the Congregation for the Faith.

The logic of that abandonment leads even Catholic States to adopt laws contrary to the Decalogue, under pressure from false religions, and on the pretext of not disconcerting them in their moral doctrine.


Conclusion

This is a point of major importance. If it were just a question of recording the obligation of religious toleration imposed by the facts, it could be admitted. But to admit that that religious liberty is based on a natural right is absolutely contrary to the necessity of eternal salvation founded on the Catholic faith, on Truth.

To deprive the legislator of the means of applying his law, above all when it is a question of what is most important for the salvation of souls, is to make faith ineffective. To allow that the law of the salvation of souls can be defied with impunity, that it can be put in check, is to destroy it and to rob Catholic governments of power to perform their fundamental task.

"Go to the King (Louis XVIII)," said Pope Pius VII to Mgr. de Boulogne, Bishop of Troyes, in his Apostolic Letter Post tam diuturnitas, "and let him know the profound affliction...with which Our spirit is assaulted and crushed for the reasons We have given. Show him that his consent to the articles of the said Constitution (articles 22 and 23, Freedom of Religion and of the Press) would be a lethal blow to the Catholic religion, a grave danger to souls, and the ruin of the faith...God Himself who possesses all power in all kingdoms and who has just restored him to authority...certainly requires him to use that authority chiefly for the support and splendor of the Church."

That, unhappily, is not the language used by Pope Paul VI to the King of Spain.

In short, it is because we believe in the infallibility of the popes when they proclaim truths many times affirmed by their predecessors that we cannot admit paragraph no.3 of Religious Liberty as it is set out in the Annex.



G)Analysis of Article IV

Fourth reason:

The assertion of this right to religious liberty is in line with earlier pontifical documents (Cf. DH2, note 2) which, in face of statism and totalitarianism have affirmed the right of the human person (or "fundamental rights").


Reply

It is enough to go to the texts quoted in the note in question and to the interesting thesis of Fr. Andre-Vincent (op. cit.) which is in substance the "fourth reason" alleged in defence of the orthodoxy of DH. We shall take the texts in their chronological order.

Leo XIII, Encyclical Libertas, 20 June 1888.

In fact, Leo XIII proclaims certain rights of the human person, though implicitly.


a) A right of the person to demand from the State effective protection against the propagation of error, notably in religious matters.

Leo XIII expounds the Catholic doctrine which, as we shall see, is altogether opposed to the freedom to propagate error proclaimed by Vatican II.15 Here is Fr. Andre-Vingent's exposition of things as he sees them:

It is for the necessary protection of persons that Leo XIII claims the safeguard of the State: on account of human weakness. And when he asserted the duty of the State to repress the excesses of “the new liberties," it was at a time when the mass of the faithful looked like a population of children: human beings have a need of (-why not say "have a right to"!?) protection against error: control of subversive ideas is no less necessary than control of drugs.

The deviations of a dissolute spirit which, for the ignorant multitude, easily become a veritable tyranny are rightly punished by legal authority, as are violent attacks against the weak (Libertas, n. 39, PIN, 207).

The liberty of the strong was the oppression of the weak. Leo XIII was taking up the idea of Lacordaire: "between the strong and the weak, it is liberty which oppresses and law which sets free." The intervention of the State was therefore the necessary protection for persons. Leo XIII does not use the phrase "rights of persons," but if his idea of the common good is pushed a little ( -including the duties of the State towards Religion, and consequently the rights of Religion and the faithful to the help of the State- ) it yields the notion of "rights of persons."

All that is true, but why make it relative by using the historic imperfect? "the mass of the faithful. ..a population of children" is still the great reality: our contemporaries are more than ever abandoned defenceless to the perpetual aggression of the mass media which, with unbelievable effectiveness, propagate that corruption of minds and morals wanted by the Counter-Church.

In Libertas Leo XIII defines a first right of the human person of which these are the elements:

1) It is a natural right, for it is founded (at least implicitly in this place) on human dignity which must avoid being decayed by adhesion to error (cf. lmmortale Dei, PIN, 149).16

2) It is a right not only natural but civil, which should be sanctioned with "the authority of law."

3) An individual right (at least implicitly: it is not, in the immediate context, a right of the society which is the Church but a right of the human person as such).

4) A "positive" right: the right to be protected (which is something positive) against the seduction of error.

b) The right of the person, in the State, to keep the commandments of God without being prevented by anything from so doing: "...but it (-liberty of conscience and of worship-) can be understood also in this sense that in the State man, conscious of his duty, has the right to follow the will of God, and to keep His commandments without being prevented by anything from so doing" (Libertas, n. 19, PIN, 215).

So there is question here of liberty of conscience and of religion. But its four elements, the first of which is fundamental, must be specified. We are dealing here with:

1) the liberty of THE TRUE RELIGION: for the commandments of God which are mentioned are kept only in the religion which God Himself has founded by becoming man and by inaugurating at the Supper and on the Cross the sacramental Sacrifice of the New and Eternal Covenant.

2) a right which is not only natural (founded on human nature and its operative perfection) but also a right "before the State," i.e., a civil right.

3) an individual right: it is, once more, a right of man or of the human person, and not a right of the religious society which is the Church.

4) this time, a "negative" right. It is a right of "not being prevented" from the exercise of the true religion. That right must be distinguished from another, namely the right not to be forced to practice the true (or any other) religion. That right was not envisaged by Leo XIII for it was not to his purpose. Vatican II talks about it (but without distinguishing it sufficiently from the first or indicating shades of meaning as it should have done-certain social constraints can be allowed, as prompting to embrace the true religion).

A difficulty arises from the phrase in parenthesis, "conscious of his duty." The way out of the difficulty can be found in the Latin text:
Sed potest etiarn in hac sententia accipi, ut homini EX CONSCIENTIA OFFICII Dei voluntatem sequi et jussa facere nulla re impediente, in civitate liceat.

From that it can be seen that the parenthesis "conscious of his duty" is explanation, not restriction. The restrictive sense would be this: "Man has the right to follow the will of God, in so far as he is conscious of it." In that case, even an erroneous conscience about the nature of the true religion would have that civil right; and that would be to accept that there is a right (natural first, and then civil) to error, which is certainly not the mind of Leo XIII who said earlier in the same Encyclical:

Right is a moral faculty, and, as we have said, and as cannot be too often repeated, it would be absurd to think that it belongs naturally and without distinction to truth and to falsehood, to good and to evil (N. 39, PIN, 207, AAS 20,605).

So it is the explanatory sense which is true: "man, having a consciousness of his duty, has a right to follow the will of God."

That removes the difficulty. Let us see how Leo XIII now relates that liberty of conscience or religious liberty, a natural and civil right, individual, negative, relative, to the only true religion, to the notion of human dignity, which Vatican II did not discover but rather perverted (saying that it belongs equally to those in the truth and those in error). Here are the Pope's words:

That liberty, the true liberty worthy of the children of God, which so gloriously protects THE DIGNITY OF THE HUMAN PERSON, is above all violence and all oppression (N. 49, PIN, 215).

So we have two rights of the human person defined by Leo XIII:

a) the right to demand from the State protection against error (particularly religious error);

b) the right, in the State, of keeping the commandments of God (in particular that of honoring Him with the practice of the true religion), without being in any way prevented.


What does DH say in the parallel passages? It names two rights, but very different from the first:

1) the right, guaranteed by the State, to propagate error: "Religious bodies also have the right not to be hindered in their public teaching and witness to their faith, whether by the spoken or by the written word" (DH, n. 4.).

2)the right "not to be restrained from acting in accordance with his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly" (DH, n.2.).

(Always "within due limits"-which are nothing of the kind!)

-And that, even when it is a question of a religion other than the true religion!


Conclusion:

So far from discovering the "continuity" between Libertas and DH which it was hoped to find, we see instead a plain contradiction.

2.Pius XI, Encyclical Mit brennender Sorge, 14 March 1937:

...Man, as person, possesses rights which he holds from God and which must remain, within the community, free from any attack which would deny, abolish or neglect them (PIN, 677.).

...The believer has an inalienable right to profess his faith and to live it as it requires to be lived. Laws which suppress or make difficult the profession and practice of that faith are in contradiction with natural law ...(DC n. 837-838,10-17.4.1937, col. 915; quoted by Andre-Vincent, op. cit. p. 252).

What believer and what faith are there referred to? The answer is given 1) by the obvious meaning of the words "believer" and "faith" which indicate the Catholic believer and the Catholic faith, 2) by the context: that letter was addressed to the bishops of Germany, and was therefore intended to defend the rights of German Catholics, and, as an encyclical, the rights of all Catholics in a similar situation (under a totalitarian régime opposed to the Catholic religion) finding even their simple "natural" right, as Pius XI says, threatened or flouted.

Vatican II also uses the word "faith" but applies it indifferently to the Catholic faith and to the superstitions of the other religions! (Cf. OH, 4, already quoted.) And DH grants that inalienable right to the "believers" of all religions!

Where is the continuity which is alleged to exist between Pius XI and Vatican II?

2 (2nd). Pius XI again .Encyclical Non abbiamo bisogno, 29 June 1931.

(The text is not quoted by DH, but it is frequently brought forward in support of the continuity thesis.)

...The sacred and inviolable rights of souls and of the Church. It is a question of the right souls have to attain the highest spiritual good under the Magisterium and the teaching work of the Church, by divine constitution the sole mandatary of that Magisterium and that soul, in the supernatural order founded in the blood of God the Redeemer, necessary and obligatory for all for participation in the Divine Redemption. It is a question of the right of the souls thus formed to communicate the treasures of the Redemption to other souls in collaboration with the actions of the hierarchical apostolate (Pius XI has Catholic Action in mind).

It was in consideration of that double right of souls that we recently said we were happy and proud to fight the good fight for the liberty of consciences, not (as some, perhaps inadvertently, have made us say) for liberty of conscience-that is an equivocal way of talking which is too often used to mean the absolute independence of conscience, something absurd in a soul created and redeemed by God...(DC, n. 574, 18 July 1931, col. 82, quoted by Andre-Vincent, op. cit. p. 251-252).

Pius XI is being very careful: he does not proclaim liberty of conscience, "something absurd," but the liberty of the consciences of Christian souls, that "liberty of the children of God" of which St. Paul speaks, and which Leo XIII defined so well:

Liberty consists in this, that with the help of civil law we may more easily live according to the prescriptions of the eternal law (Libertas, n. 17, PIN, 185).

And he defended that liberty in these terms:

That liberty, the true liberty of the children of God, which so gloriously protects the dignity of the human person, is above all violence and all oppression (ibid., n. 49, PIN, 215).

So Pius XI is proclaiming that liberty of conscience of Christian souls, and not, like Vatican II, "the right not to be restrained from acting...in accordance with his own beliefs" in religious matters, without distinguishing between a true conscience and an erroneous conscience!

Pius XI, besides, defines two rights:

1) The right of souls to attain the highest spiritual good under the Magisterium and the teaching work of the Church.

That is a long way from the "free enquiry" proclaimed by Vatican II and which exists, according to the Council, as well in "teaching and instruction" as in "communication and dialogue" (DH, 3). On the contrary, it is in full continuity with the teaching of Leo XIII on the right of the person to the protection of the State against the diffusion of error.

2) "The right of Catholic souls to communicate the treasures of the Redemption to other souls" under the direction of the hierarchy.

That is a long way from the right granted by Vatican II "to religious groups (-without distinction-) not to be pre- vented from publicly teaching and bearing witness to their beliefs by the spoken or written word." Vatican II jumbles together, as it pleases, the treasure of the Redemption and superstitions foreign to the true faith.

Where is the continuity which is alleged to exist between Pius XI and Vatican II?

3. Pius XII, Christmas Radio Message, 24 December 1942.

The Pontiff, "in the full hell of war, had the courage to lay the foundations of peace...After mentioning the link between the two phenomena of proletarianization and State totalitarianism, Pius XII pointed out the direction to be taken in the effort to reverse the process of dissolution" (Andre-Vincent, op. cit., p. 114-115):

To promote respect for, and the practical exercise of, the fundamental rights of the person, namely: the right to maintain and develop corporal, intellectual and moral life, in particular the right to a religious training and education; the right to worship God in private and in public, with the exercise of religious charity included...

Pius XII is here claiming the "fundamental rights" of the human person, that is to say, the "natural rights" which ought to become civil rights. The difficulty lies in the interpretation of the phrase "the right to worship God in private and in public." Is that the same as asking, with Vatican 11, for the right to "honor the Supreme Being with public worship"? (DH, 4.) The answer must be NO!

In the mouth of Pius XII the phrase "worship of God" is simply an abstract expression for THE TRUE RELIGION, it includes the true religion implicitly, and, still, implicitly and not explicitly, excludes the other religions in so far as they are directly opposed to acts of simple natural religion which underlies all positive religions.17

For, in our view, it is a question of direct defence of the rights of Catholic souls (Cf. Pius XI), and also of the oblique condemnation of the exorbitant demands by totalitarian regimes (the atheists especially) which fall unjustly on Catholics and non-Catholics.18

The text of DH, on the contrary, starts by speaking explicitly of "liberty of religious groups." The phrase "honoring the Supreme Being" must therefore be understood, in that context, as being an abstract expression for ALL RELIGIONS which includes them all implicitly at the same level. Consequently it does not respect the character of the one true religion, the Catholic religion.

There is, then, an abyss between the Christmas 1942 Radio Message and DH: the language makes us suspect its presence, the context of each document brings it into the open.


4. John XXIII, Encyclical Pacem in terris, II April 1963.

Here is a text in its current translation:

Everyone has the right to honor God according to the just rule of conscience and to profess his religion in private and public life.

There follows a quotation from Lactantius and one from Leo XIII: Libertas, (n. 39, PIN, 21 S), a text we quoted above apropos of Non abbiamo bisogno.

In the French version John XXIII seems to be claiming for the human person the right to profess his religion whatever it may be (so, State indifferentism!). But that is not so-the translation is defective, as can be seen from the Latin:

In hominis juribus hoc quoque numerandum est, ut et deum, ad rectam suae conscientiae normam, venerari potest, et religion em privatim publice profiteri...

Among the rights of man must be numbered that of being able to honor God according to the just rule of his conscience and to profess religion in private and public life...(AAS.259, 55, 1963.)

That text, therefore, can be taken as an abstract expression for "the true religion," and can be interpreted in the sense of Pius XII's "fundamental rights." The parenthesis, "according to the just rule of his' conscience" can also be interpreted in a traditional sense: "according to each one's conscience, corrected by the virtue of prudence and adhering to the true." (The same expression in Gaudium et Spes, n. 16, can also be interpreted in that sense.)

In that hypothesis, Pacem in terris shows the same break with Vatican II as do the texts examined above.

But an official author, who took part in the writing of the Encyclical,19 Mgr. Pietro Pavan,20 makes a revealing confession of which we are informed by Rene Laurentin, writing about DH:

We did not acquire this "right of the person" from the Council. The decree DH took it from Pacem in terris and its formulas. That encyclical had at first been accepted just as it was, but its continued acceptance depended on its being watered down. However, the declaration (DH) taken as a whole is not a withdrawal and indeed it gets rid of certain ambiguities which had been deliberately kept in Pacem in terris. (Bilan du Concile, Paris, Seuil, 1966, pp. 329-330.)

In what did that deliberate ambiguity consist? It must be that the editors decided to preserve the possibility of a traditional interpretation with "watered down" expressions ("profess religion," "according to the just rule of his conscience") which nevertheless left the way open, by not excluding it, for the new conception in DH.

In any case, on the hypothesis of that calculated ambiguity, Pacem in terris is not entitled, at least in this matter, to the assent due to the documents of the ordinary Magisterium of the Church, and to quote it in support of DH is valueless and without force.

We think we have said enough here to show that DH cannot take its place, as is claimed, in the line of earlier pontifical documents that can be adduced in the matter.



1. P. Pavan, Libertd religiosa e publici poteri, Milano, 1965, p. 357.

2. State indifferentism, at least towards this or that religion which it should in justice recognize as the only true one, or which it should favor by legislation. DH does indeed recognize (1)  the State has duties in matters of religion "to enable the citizens to perform their religious duty more easily,” which is Catholic doctrine: (2) the true religion "subsists in the Catholic Church," which is the beginning of a climb-down; but it takes care not to draw the conclusion by the popes: “the State should recognize and protect the Catholic religion as the only true one, etc.”

3. Of Course, even this extreme formulation of Vatican II Liberalism does not eliminate from the texts the doctrine of the State’s duties to religion: “The civil power must certainly recognize and foster the religious life of the citizens…” (DH, 3). But the council leaves it to be understood that the States does its duty to religion when it guarantees to various religious communities the exercise of their many religions! Where then are the rights of the one true religion? Is the State going to honor God and be pleasing to Him by means of several different religions?

5.The Following passage, (D), explains the tenor of ©.

6. . Cf. Theological Commission (Card. Ottaviani). preparatory schema for V. II. Part II. ch. IX: "In cities (states) where a large part of the citizens do not profess the Catholic faith...the non-Catholic civil power ought, in matters of religion , to conform itself at least to the precepts of the natural law. In those conditions. it should grant civil liberty to all cults which are not opposed to natural religion.”

7. An example of the use of the argument ad hominem is given by Pius XI writing to the ordinaries of China on 15 June 1926: "Everybody knows, and it is confirmed by the whole of history, that the Church accommodates herself to the constitutions and laws proper to each nation...and demands nothing more for the preachers of the Gospel and the faithful than the common law, security and liberty." It should be noted that Pius XI is not demanding the common law for the Church as such and in general, but for the missionaries and the Christians in a particular country with as yet no knowledge of Christ.

8. See the answer to the 4th "remark" of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

9. Cf. A. Roul, L ‘Eglise catholique et le droit commun, Casterman, 1931, p. 496.

10. Cf. J. Courtney Murray, “Le développement de la doctrine de l’ Eglise” in “Vatican II, la liberté religieuse,” Unam sanctum n. 60, Cerf. 1967, p. 134).

11. Hypothesis : behavior depending entirely on historical circumstances, and therefore not immutable.

12. The Rhine Flows into the Tiber (in U.S.A., Hawthorn Books, 1967, p. 251; in Great Britain, Augustine Publishing Co., 1978, p. 251).

13. MGR. LEFEBVRE'S FOOTNOTE, not Father Wiltgen's: DH says: “If because of the circumstances of a particular people special civil recognition is given to one religious community in the constitutional organization of the State..." (DH, 6)

14. MGR. LEFEBVRE'S FOOTNOTE, not Father Wiltgen's: Cf. Pope Pius XII, Allocution to the Congress of Historic Sciences, 7 September 1955.

15. "Within the limits of a just public order"-which limits nothing! For, according to DH: I) public order is not concerned with the State's duties toward truth, especially religious truth, 2) the State will decide arbitrarily what it will or will not tolerate-it is not for the Church to decide, though the right to that decision belongs to her.

16. "Liberty, that element of human perfection, must be applied to what is true and what is good...If the intelligence sticks to false ideas, if the will chooses evil and attaches itself to it, neither of them reaches its perfection, both fall away from their natural dignity and are corrupted- sed exciderunt dignitate natllrali et in corruptelam ambae dilabunnlr."

17. Cf. Lercher, lnstitutiones theologicae dogmaticae, Vol. I, n. 22.

18. At the level of the simple natural right. Thus, because it is natural rights, especially any that are religious, which totalitarian countries under communist domination are massacring so terribly, Pius XII was perfectly justified in demanding respect for them. {Cf. the allocution by Cardinal Ottaviani to the Pontifical Atheneum of the Lateran, 3.3.1953, on "The duties of the Catholic State towards Religion" lmp. Polyglotte Vaticane, 1963, p. 285.)

19. The opposition we make between "liberty " and "the social royalty of Our Lord Jesus Christ" is not an opposition of contradiction but an opposition of "the whole and the part," in this sense that the social royalty of Our Lord Jesus Christ does include the freedom of the Church in relation to the temporal power, but that liberty alone is not the whole of the doctrine of the social reign of Christ!

20. Fr. Rouquette writes: "I think I have it on good authority that the project (of the Encyclical) was drawn up by Mgr. Pavan... it was elaborated with great secrecy; the text was not submitted to the Holy Office...so as to avoid the publication of the Encyclical being delayed indefinitely by the Holy Office as had happened with Mater et Magistra. But the producers of the Encyclical took their dogmatic precautions and had their text revised by the Pope's official theologian, a consultor at the Holy Office, who bears the archaic name, 'Master of the Sacred Palace.' The text was submitted to some other experts" (Etudes, June 1963, p. 405). If that is true, what confidence can we have in the Encyclical on the point under consideration?

[Stone]

Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre
Volume 2, Chapter XVI

Archbishop Lefebvre Concerning the Mass
[Emphasis mine]

The Ordo Missae Promulgated by Pope Paul VI

The new concept of the world, and of the relations of the Church with that world, was bound to affect the means by which the Church expresses and lives her faith: Liturgy, therefore, the school of faith, will itself be transformed by that Liberal ecumenical spirit which sees Protestants as separated brethren and no longer as heretics imbued with principles radically contrary to the doctrine of the Church.

The effort is no longer to convert but to unite. Hence the attempt to synthesize Catholic Liturgy and Protestant worship.

The presence of six Protestant pastors on the Commission for Liturgical Reform speaks volumes.

The Pope himself (Allocution 13 January 1965) spoke of "liturgical renovation" as "of a new religious pedagogy" which will take "its place as the central motor of the great movement inscribed in the constitutional principles of the Church," principles renovated in the Council.

Mgr. Dwyer, a member of the Liturgy Consilium and Archbishop of Birmingham, recognized the importance of that reform (press conference, 23 October 1967):

It is the Liturgy which forms the character, the mentality, of men faced with problems...The liturgical reform is, in a deep sense, the key to aggiomamento. Make no mistake, the Revolution begins there...

There is insistence on the community spirit and the active participation of the faithful-and one cannot help thinking of the spirit which animated Luther and his disciples (see Cristiani's book, From Lutheranism to Protestantism). (See the Institutions Liturgiques of Dam Gueranger, extracts edited by Diffusion de la Pensée Française, especially chapters 14 and 23.) Dom Guéranger's disclosure of all the efforts of the heretics against the Roman Liturgy throws a strange light on the conciliar (and post-conciliar) liturgical reform.

Moreover, if one studies all the details, particularly of the new reform of the Mass, one is stupefied to rediscover the reforms advocated by Luther, the Jansenists, and the Council of Pistoia.

How can this reform of the Mass be reconciled with the canons of the Council of Trent and the condemnations in Pius VI's Bull Auctorem fidei?

We are not judging intentions; but the facts (and the consequences of those facts, which, moreover, are like the consequences of the introduction of those reforms in past centuries) compel us to recognize with Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci (Brief Critical Examination, delivered to the Holy Father, 3 September 1969) "that the New Ordo departs in striking fashion, as a whole and in detail, from the Catholic Theology of the Holy Mass, defined for ever by the Council of Trent."

Moreover, the “Normative Mass" presented by Fr. Bugnini in 1967 to the Synod of Bishops in Rome was strongly opposed by the, bishops. At the conference he gave to Superiors General in October 1967, at which I was present, we were astounded at the way the liturgical past of the Church was treated. I was, myself, shocked at the answers given to objectors, and I could not believe that the speaker was the person to whom the Church was entrusting her liturgical reform. Cardinal Cicognani and Gut told me of their immense sorrow at this incomprehensible reform. Another Cardinal, still living, said to me that Article 7 in the first version of the Instruction was heretical.

The explanations, on the word of Mgr. Bugnini himself, have made no change in the doctrine previously expressed. In any case, the New Mass has not been modified: it remains a Catholic-Protestant synthesis. That has been publicly recognized by the Protestants.

If the Congregation for the Faith were to ask me, I could make a radical and detailed study, with references, of the similarities between the New Mass and Protestant worship, and of the similarities between the terms used, accordingly, for the divine realities of the Mass and Protestant terms.

In conclusion, it is certain, in the opinion of those, even, who use the New Rite, that the New Mass represents a very perceptible depreciation of the sacred mystery: for example, the expression of the Catholic faith in the divine realities of this mystery is weakened-expression in words, gestures, acts, in all that puts the mark of the sublime on this reality which is the heart of the Church.

More than that: there are numerous suppressions and new attitudes which end by breeding doubt in the minds of the faithful and leading them, without their being aware of it, to adopt a Protestant mentality.

Liberal Ecumenism produces its effects little by little and diminishes the faith of Catholics. Many, especially the young, leave the Church.

How could the Holy See embark on such a reform without taking account of the acts of the Magisterium, but instead going the way of the Protestants, the Jansenists, and the Council of Pistoia?

That is why we are clinging to the Roman Mass of all time, which, according to the infallible judgment of Saint Pius V, can be neither abolished nor censured. We wish to keep the Catholic faith by keeping the Catholic Mass-and not an ecumenical Mass which, even though valid and not heretical, inclines to heresy.

It is that which makes me say I cannot see how clerics can be trained on the new Mass; priest and sacrifice have a quasi-transcendental relation: if sacrifice is made doubtful, then priesthood is made doubtful.


Confirmation of the Protestantizing of the Church though the Liturgy

(Extracts from Ce qui'il taut d'amour à l'homme by Julien Green of the Académie Française, Plon, Paris, 1978. J. Green was converted from Anglicanism in 1916.) [Italics from the Apologia]

The first time I heard Mass in French, I could scarcely believe it was a Catholic Mass and I never again felt at home on it. Only the Consecration reassured me, but it was word for word like the Anglican consecration (p, 135).

One day when I was in the country with my sister Anne we watched a televised Mass…I recognized it, and so did Anne, as a rather crude imitation of the Anglican service to which we had been accustomed in our childhood. The old Protestant who sleeps in me under my Catholic faith woke up suddenly as the screen presented this plain and stupid imposture, and when the strange ceremony had come to an end I just said to my sister: "Why did we become Catholics?”

All at once I understood how cleverly the Church was being drawn from one way of believing to another. The faith was not tampered with – it was more subtle than that. It could have been objected to me that sacrifice is mentioned at least three times in the new Mass, but I could have answered that there is a great difference between just mentioning a truth and throwing light on it. We already knew that the Mass is the memorial of the Super. That is the Eucharist is also the crucifixion of Christ, without which there is no salvation, is said to us no longer. So, the reality of the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass is in process of discreet obliteration from the consciousness of Catholics, lay people and priests…

Old priests who have it, so to say, in their blood are not likely to forget it, and so they say Mass in conformity with the intention of the Church. But what about young priests? What do they still believe? And who dare say what their Mass is worth? (p. 143).

Papal encyclicals will make no change in the fact that the modern rationalist world rejects miracle. Acceptance of the Mass can be brought about only if the miraculous element is suppressed. Cut down to Protestant dimensions it will have some chance of surviving in the Christianity of today, but it will no longer be the Moss (page 144).

The Church, already agitated, was further disturbed with cross-currents when Mgr. Lefebvre took his stand against the Mass of Paul VI and the Council. The history of his interminable controversy with the Vatican is too well known to need recounting here. Millions of Catholics felt themselves involved, myself included. The question I put to conciliar priests was simple: “What is the objection to the Old Mass?" The answer was: "It is out-of-date.” Yet at the same time we were told that the New Mass drew on older sources and was therefore closer to the first Masses said in the Church. It would need specialists to see clearly into the obscurity of these problems. There were heated discussions about the disappearance of the sacrifice of the Cross. That Cross, in the New Mass, was nothing but a phantasm: we were in the Cenacle on Maundy Thursday evening. But we were at the same time at the Supper and on Calvary in the abandoned Mass of Saint Pius V. The difference between the two is enormous, and it allowed the Anglican Church to glimpse the possibility of the union it had ardently desired since before the 1914 war. The new Church responded warmly. Sacrifice was mentioned at least three times in the New Mass -mentioned, but nothing more. Whereas the Eucharist was fully explained to the faithful. We had evidently been landed with what the theologians call an obscuration of an essential part of the Mass. To protest was considered an act of rebellion. The French bishops gave us to understand that the Mass of Saint Pius V was henceforward forbidden – which was a formal lie. And the rent was made.

I was very disturbed, for at the age of sixteen I had sworn fidelity to the Mass of the Council of Trent, and today I was ordered to have no part in it. Whatever one may think of certain attitudes of Mgr. Lefebvre, we are in debt to that French prelate for having bravely aroused the conscience of part of the Catholic world by compelling it to ask itself about its faith. Do we believe or do we not believe in the reality of the sacrifice of the Mass? To what degree are we Roman Catholics, or do we tend to have a faith which is ready to make concessions to Protestantism? I acknowledge the authority of the Pope, and the idea of leaving the Church would fill me with horror; but I remain faithful to my profession of faith in 1916, and I will not abandon it at all. To say that preference for the Mass of Saint Pius V is an act of rebellion is indefensible (p. 150-151).

[Stone]

Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre

Volume 2, Chapter XVII

Concerning Penance and Confirmation

The transcript made at a conference in Florence on this subject must be incomplete, for I am accustomed to say that the new formula is the formula of an eastern rite and that it is certainly valid when it is correctly translated.

But it is frequently badly translated or shortened. Often it is reduced to “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Sometimes it is omitted altogether, because the Holy Spirit has already been invoked. As to the Holy Oils, the validity of their consecration is questionable. In some dioceses Confirmation is no longer administered: baptism is supposed to suffice.

It is because of that situation, disastrous for their children, that parents insist on my coming to give their children the sacrament of confirmation. I accept reluctantly: and I should prefer not to respond to those invitations if I learned that the sacrament was administered in the normal way.


Answer Concerning the Sacrament of Penance

I think the following document will provide a sufficient answer; if I have asserted that collective absolution is not sacramental, that is because the spirit in which it is given by most priests makes nonsense of the idea of judgment (which is what the sacrament of Penance is) and of the necessity of integrity of confession.

To make the exception into the rule is to risk changing the law in its essentials.

But I am sure that when the sacrament is given in the spirit of the exceptions formerly authorized it is valid.


The Sacrament of Penance

1. The new Ordo Poenitentiae (NOP).

-16 June 1972: From the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "Pastoral norms for the administration of general sacramental absolution."

-2 December 1973: From the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship, the Novus Ordo Poenitentiae, that is, the new ritual for Penance. This last document envisages three modes of sacramental absolution.

-Traditional mode: individual confession and absolution.

-Individual confession and absolution at the close of a penitential ceremony.

-For some special cases (pro certis casibus) general confession and absolution.

This last mode leads to grace abuses of the sacrament in what concerns the integrity of the confession.

The NOP gives the conditions for validity, in the third mode of absolution, to be fulfilled by the faithful:

-sorrow for sins committed,

-a firm purpose not to commit them again,

-a firm purpose to make up for scandal and injury which have resulted,

-finally (what is special to this mode) the intention of confessing each mortal sin in an individual confession which must be made within the year.

It is said, in addition, that there is no right (and it is therefore invalid?) to receive another general absolution without a previous auricular confession of grave sins not yet confessed.


2. The Church's former discipline (there is nothing on the subject in the Ritual or in Canon Law).

-Benedict XV: Sacred Penitentiary (6 February 1915): General absolution is authorized for soldiers when they are called to fight, when their numbers are such that they cannot be heard singly and when they have made an act of contrition.

-Pius XII: S.C. of the Consistory (1 December 1939): extension of the foregoing concession to all the faithful in danger of death during air raids.

-10 December 1940: in answer to a query: the permission applies not just when fighting is imminent but when it is thought necessary to use the permission.

-1940: Indult granted to Cardinal Bertram: general absolution is authorized for the faithful working in war factories and for prisoners unable to make their confession singly (so, not in proximate danger of death), and also for foreign workers and for prisoners in large bodies.

-25 March 1944: the Sacred Penitentiary summed up all the foregoing and made a clear statement of the doctrine and practice of general absolution. The indult granted to Cardinal Bertram seems to be extended to the whole Church:

Apart from cases where there is danger of death, it is permitted to give sacramental absolution to several of the faithful all at once. Moreover, merely because of the great number of penitents, as on a great feast or when an indulgence is to be gained, it is permitted to give sacramental absolution individually to penitents when they have made only part of their confession (Cf. Proposition 59 among those condemned by Innocent XI, 2 March 1679, Dz 1209); that would, however, be permitted in case of serious and urgent necessity proportionate to the gravity of the divine precept of the integrity of confession, for example, if the penitents, through no fault of theirs, were to be deprived for a long time of the grace of the sacrament and of Holy Communion.

The text of the Normae Pastorales of 1972 refers in a note to the Sacred Penitentiary text of 1944. This is what it says:

Apart from cases of danger of death, it is permitted to give sacramental absolution to the faithful who have confessed only in general if they have been suitably exhorted to repentance, if there is grave necessity, that is to say, if, given the number of penitents, there are not enough confessors available to hear each one's confession normally within convenient time-limits, so that the penitents would be forced to stay deprived for a long time, through no fault of their own, of the grace of the sacrament or of Holy Communion. Such a state of affairs could arise especially in mission countries, but also in other places, or for groups of people, when such a necessity appears. But, on the other hand, when confessors are available general absolution is not made licit simply by a great gathering of people, as can happen, for example, on a great feast or at a great pilgrimage.

3. Comparison of the two texts

GENERAL ABSOLUTION


Not permitted, except in very grave and urgent necessity. - S. Pen. 1944.

=long and not blameworthy deprivation of sacramental absolution and of communion.


Permitted in grave necessity - S.C. Doc. F. 1972.

=not enough confessors to hear everybody's confession within a reasonable time, so that there will be long and not blameworthy deprivation of sacramental absolution and of Holy Communion.


It may be remarked:

a) the two texts approach the question each from its own point of view: the first speaks of prohibition, the second of permission.

b) In the first, “a very grave and urgent necessity" is required; in the second, "a grave necessity" is enough.

c) most important, what in the first text was grave necessity is in the second no more than a consequence ("so that"), the "necessity" becomes the insufficiency of confessors and the lack of time! If that is the fact of the matter, the spirit of the first text is contradicted, and the second text comes under the condemnation of Innocent XI!


4. Discussion

The shifting of stress between the two texts can be shown plainly in the following scheme:

S. Pen. 1944
1) General absolution is not permitted. 
2) It is not justified by the number of penitents.
3) Unless there will be too long a deprivation of the grace of the sacrament.


S. C. Doc. F. 1972
1) General absolution is permitted.
2) It is justified by the number of penitents.
3) Because without it there would be too long a deprivation of the grace of the sacrament
                               

That comparison of the texts is more expressive than the one which preceded it. It shows clearly

1)what was not permitted has now become permitted;

2)what did not justify the forbidden practice justifies it for the future;

3)the "very grave and urgent necessity" is not any more too long a deprivation of the grace of the sacrament, but simply the number of penitents measured against the availability of confessors and of time.

Those being the facts, we can show that the new practice is opposed in spirit and in reality to the former practice. There are three arguments, one speculative, one practical, and the third a reductio ad absurdum.


First Argument

The 1972 text also refers to the proposition condemned by Innocent XI which, with the word "only" added in 1944, runs as follows:

"It is permitted to give sacramental absolution to any of the faithful who, only because of the large number of penitents-as can happen on a great feast day or when there is an indulgence to be gained-have made only part of their confession."

The laxists, who upheld that proposition, would not have done so if, on a feast day, there had been as many confessors as penitents: so it is clear they thought it right to absolve those who had made only part of their confession on the ground that otherwise it would be impossible to hear all their confessions in reasonable time!

It is therefore stupid, and a relapse into the laxist error, to say that inability to hear all the confessions in a reasonable time is "grave necessity"!

But the 1972 text is drawn up in that sense: the number of penitents becomes the "grave necessity," and too long a deprivation of the grace of the sacrament, which is the only "grave and urgent necessity," is presented only as a regular consequence of the other. In that form the text prompts to neglect of the rest of the sentence: "so that the penitents are compelled..."

Thus, the only reason which could really justify the case is practically eliminated, either by neglect, coming as it does at the end of the sentence, or because it is thought of as a regular consequence of the reason newly and fraudulently introduced by a twisting if the text. And the new reason is none other than the one rejected by Innocent XI!


Second Argument

Some will object, no doubt, that the 1972 text is not formally heterodox, and that its very ambiguity allows it to be understood in the traditional sense. The "Pastoral Norms" of 1972 even try to restrict the broad interpretation of the text, in a paragraph which says:

Priests must teach the faithful that those whose conscience is burdened with mortal sin are forbidden, if they have opportunity of recourse to a confessor, to refrain deliberately or by negligence from meeting their obligation of individual confession and to wait for an occasion when general absolution will be given.

It is also said that individual confession must continue to be the ordinary mode.

But that paragraph is not quoted in the Ordo Poenitentiae of 1973, and it is typical of the spirit of present reforms that, having opened a door, they then pretend to close it; or having closed a door for good and all, they then endeavor to open it again. Or, to put it less pointedly, seeing that they have opened a door, the authors of the reform protest that their directives are being abused and they try in vain to shut the door; or, having closed a door once and for all, they then feel obliged to open it just a little! The perpetual swing of the pendulum! Here is another text which tries vainly to close the door: it is in a letter dated 8 February 1977 sent by Mgr. Bernardin, President of the Episcopal Conference, to the Bishops of the United States, informing them of the precise explanations given by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the subject of general absolution (Documentation Catholique, n. 1716, 20 March 1977). The paragraph which concerns us is as follows:

The example mentioned explicitly in article 3 (of the Pastoral Norms) of pastoral situations which do not justify recourse to general absolution-a great concourse of penitents expected on the occasion of a great feast or a great pilgrimage, when it is possible to take measures to ensure confessions-should a fortiori implicitly exclude the calling together of large crowds with the primary purpose of giving general absolution.

That commentary by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on its Pastoral Norms was intended to repudiate the "broad" interpretation of those Norms which had recently led to two serious abuses of the sacrament in the United States. But is it not deceiving itself about the effectiveness of its restrictions on the interpretation of an ambiguous text? The Pastoral Norms of 1972 explicitly foresee the case of penitential ceremonies-which are the occasion of the abuses in question-in paragraph 10:

Collective penitential rites: The faithful must be carefully taught that liturgical celebrations and collective penitential rites are very useful for a more fruitful preparation for confession...If penitents make their individual confession during the course of such celebrations each one should receive absolution personally from the confessor to whom he goes. In cases where sacramental absolution has to be given collectively, it must always be administered according to the particular rite fixed by the Congregation for Divine Worship...

So the faithful are encouraged to flock to penitential ceremonies where, if, as is usual, there are few priests (for priests willing to hear confessions are rare), the conditions for permitting general absolution seem to be easily fulfilled! And that, though the "primary" purpose of the celebration was not to give general absolution; in practice, the organizers of penitential celebrations will be eager to affirm that the case is urgent, given the great gathering of the faithful, without inquiring if the faithful have really no other possibility of receiving the grace of the sacrament soon. Thus, relying on an ambiguous text which futile attempts have been made to limit, a mode of procedure is introduced in practice contrary to the traditional practice of the Church and a grave abuse of the sacrament of Penance.


Third Argument

If the 1972 text were interpreted strictly there would be no more general absolutions than there have been since 1944; but that is not the case. General absolution at the close of penitential ceremonies tend to be the rule. Three recent cases can be quoted where general absolution was given by abuse to a crowd of the faithful after a penitential ceremony: to 11,500 people at Memphis, in Advent, 1976, and to 2,000 at Jackson, with great publicity. It was to prevent the recurrence of such deplorable scenes that the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith wrote the commentary on the Pastoral Norms which was published by Mgr. Bernardin (Cf. above, p. 172). But that document is powerless to obstruct similar aberrations: a few months later the "famous" general absolution took place in Lourdes, 12 September 1977 for the pilgrims from the diocese of Vannes under the presidency of their bishop.

The strict interpretation of the ambiguous text of 1972 remains a dead letter, and reminders are useless. The truth is that, when in these matters, a door has been opened it just cannot be shut.


5. The validity of irregular general absolutions

The 1944 text and that of 1972 both say that, apart from the cases indicated, general sacramental absolutions should be considered grave abuses "which all priests must be careful to avoid, conscious of their personal responsibility for the good of souls and the dignity of the sacrament of Penance" (Pastoral Norms, n. 8). Those abuses are therefore gravely illicit and detract from the dignity of the sacrament. Do they also affect its validity? The answer could be: ipso facto, no; but in certain cases, yes.

The commentary in Bonne Presse on the Instruction of 1944 said:

Apart from the cases provided for, general absolution is illicit and is a grave abuse on the part of the minister, but the absolution is valid if the dispositions of the penitent are what they ought to be.

What case of general absolution would not be valid? The case where the faithful, insufficiently instructed by the priests, lack the requisite intention to confess, the next time they go to confession, each one of their grave sins.

But further, in our opinion, it can be asked if irregular general absolutions do not ipso facto make the sacrament invalid because in fact the reason exempting from integrity of confession is bound to be missing. The fact is that the divine precept of integrity of confession concerns the validity of the sacrament of Penance. All theologians recognize the existence of grounds, physical and moral, which exempt from integrity,1 and the Magisterium has named a number of such grounds (in 1915, 1939, 1940, and 1944), thus recognizing in those cases the true sacramentality and validity of the general absolution; but they cannot escape the conclusion that the sacrament is sacrilegious abused, and is invalid, when general absolution is given in the absence of a reason exempting from integrity of confession.

Thus, in many cases the general absolutions which follow penitential ceremonies seem to be invalid, from lack of the requisite intention in the penitent supplying the integrity of his confession the next time he goes to Confession, or from lack of a physical cause for exemption.


6. Pastoral value of the practice authorized by the Pastoral Norms of 1972.

Proposition 59, condemned by Innocent XI, is: "at the least scandalous; in practice, pernicious." What is to be said of a document which favors, though later introducing restrictions, the practice thus reproved?

On 14 July 1972 L'Osservatore Romano made this comment on the discipline of general absolution:

It is a pastoral document and consequently makes no innovation in doctrine and leaves the present discipline substantially unchanged, though it makes provision for certain urgent cases.

It seems to us, on the contrary, that there is a shift of emphasis at the doctrinal  level: what was formerly forbidden except in a limited number of cases is now permitted. As to discipline: the earlier discipline would be unchanged if the 1972 norms were applied "strictly," but in fact it is the opposite which is happening, for all the futile reminders from the authorities in Rome. Finally, what in the earlier discipline was not "an urgent case" at all is given that name now in a text which is ambiguous but which is the basis of a clear practice.

We can therefore conclude by saying that the "Pastoral Norms," far from being "a pastoral document," are an anti-pastoral discipline by their introduction of general absolution at the conclusion o f penitential ceremonies as one of the possible rites of sacramental absolution. In fact it seems that here, as so often, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, trying to use its authority to limit the damage they do, has done nothing but ratify the novelties emanating from the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship.


1. All moral theologians number among such physical grounds "lack of time due to imminent danger of death," but they add that, outside that case, "lack of time never exempts from integrity" (Cf. Prummer, Man. Theol. Mar. Vol. III, no.379).