<![CDATA[The Catacombs - Sermons and Conferences]]>

<![CDATA[The Catacombs - Sermons and Conferences]]> https://thecatacombs.org/ Mon, 20 Apr 2026 06:44:54 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[Archbishop Lefebvre: Good Shepherd Sunday Sermon 1990]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7844 Tue, 06 Jan 2026 15:43:10 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7844 The Recusant #65 - Epiphany 2026:

Translated for the Recusant from the original, here.

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
Sermon at Friedrichshafen,
Good Shepherd Sunday, 1990

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

My dear brother bishops, dear friends, dear fellow priests, dear faithful, Let us give thanks to God today for this magnificent day, this magnificent assembly on this feast of the Good Shepherd. I think that Providence couldn’t have allowed us to have a more significant day than this, a day which give the subject of this sermon: the Good Shepherd. Before I give you a few words of encouragement on this subject, I would like also to thank all those who organised this magnificent day, this gathering. And you, my dear faithful, didn’t hesitate to come from far away, some of you had a long journey getting here, to come and assist at this Catholic ceremony, a ceremony which unites us in the Catholic Faith and in the love of the Catholic Church. I congratulate you with all my heart. And with what emotion I went up and down amongst you just now and I noticed how many children are present here. That’s precisely the witness which the Catholic Church gives, which the Catholic family gives: a Catholic family is a family where there are lots of children. Also, I congratulate you with all my heart, dear Catholic families, for bringing your children who will remember this beautiful gathering in Friedrichshafen. You have come, my dear faithful, particularly to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the foundation of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X.

Twenty years ago - to be exact it will be this November - that our SSPX was officially recognised by Bishop Charriere, bishop of Fribourg, Switzerland. So it was twenty years ago that the SSPX was born, developed and began forming good priests, true shepherds, good shepherds. That’s why the SSPX was founded, to produce good shepherds, good priests. But what is a priest, my dear faithful? The priest according to the spirit of the Catholic Church, according to the definition of the Catholic Church, is he who offers the Sacrifice of the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ. He has the power, by the grace of the Sacrament of Holy Orders which he receives, to offer the same Sacrifice which Our Lord Jesus Christ offered on the cross. So the priest is one who has power over God Himself, over the Word of God Incarnate, power to make Him come down onto the altar to renew His sacrifice. An extraordinary, incredible power. Poor creatures that we are, feeble creatures, and yet we have power over God, the Creator of the universe, who created everything, who created us. The power to make Him come down onto the altar and renew His Sacrifice.

And by that same fact, there is the second power which a priest has, by virtue of the fact that he has power over the physical body of Our Lord, His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, the priest has a power over the Mystical Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, he can bring all men, all humanity, to Our Lord Jesus Christ, to participate in His Sacrifice and therefore to prepare these souls through the sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, to give them the sacraments which prepare souls to worthily receive Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator and Redeemer. That’s what the work of a priest is, that’s what a Catholic priest is and always has been. We need to remind ourselves of that, and the SSPX has no other goal than the formation of such priests, priests who will one days have, through the grace of their ordination, a power over God Himself, over the Incarnate Word, to offer His Sacrifice, to unite themselves to His Sacrifice, and to give Our Lord Jesus Christ to souls.

But my dear faithful, are we dreaming? Is it possible that a human creation can have such a power? Yes, that’s what the priest has. What a dignity is the priestly dignity! What an ideal is the priestly ideal! A magnificent ideal! And we would like, and we have tried over these past twenty years, to breath into these young Levites, these young seminarians, a love for their vocation and for Our Lord Jesus Christ, so that they can truly be the priests that you desire, that you wish for, the priests which you need.

Was it really necessary, my dear faithful, to found this Society of St Pius X? Weren’t there already enough seminaries in the world? Weren’t there enough congregations with their own seminarians? Was the foundation of this Society really urgent? My dear brethren, the object of the most persistent attacks, the most evil attacks of the devil in the Church is his attack on the priesthood. The devil hates true priests, hates the true priesthood and hates the true Mass. He hates the Mass which is the cross of Christ because he was defeated by Our Lord’s cross. Ever since then he has not ceased attacking the priesthood, so as to destroy the Mass, because he
knows that we will defeat him through the Mass. Just as Our Lord defeated him with the cross, we priests too will defeat the devil with the cross. And the whole history of the Church proves this and shows this, in every century: the attacks of the devil against the priest. But we can say that the attacks against priests were done above all either through schisms, like that of Luther, who destroyed the priesthood and thus the altar. So after the Council of Trent a whole legion of Saints arose, St Vincent de Paul, St Charles Borromeo, St Peter Canisius, St John Eudes, and so many others, so many holy priests, who founded good seminaries and who wanted to
give the Church true priests, the true priesthood, and they had many of them.

But I think that the devil’s power has never been so great as it is in our times. Never have the devil’s attacks been as deep, as clever or as destructive as in our time. Why? Because he has made use of the Church’s authority to destroy the priesthood. Up to that point he had ever managed that. Yes, in our times, the devil is making use of the Church’s authority to destroy the priesthood and the altar. That’s a fact. It’s not something which might happen in the future, it’s something which we’ve witnessed ourselves.

And how did it happen? Well, by calling a Council which would have a spirit close to Protestantism, Protestantism which destroys the priesthood and the sacrifice of the altar because Protestants don’t believe in the priesthood, they don’t believe in the Sacrifice of the Mass as being a sacrifice which makes reparation for sins. They destroyed the Mass and the priesthood.

So the devil succeeded in somehow making those in authority in the Church favourable to this destructive spirit entering the Church, through ecumenism. So, in order to get close to the Protestants - because that’s what ecumenism is - they made this New Mass. A New Mass. Why a New Mass? The Church’s Mass which was said for twenty centuries, they changed it, saying explicitly that they were doing so in order to eventually concelebrate with the Protestants and have a sort of inter-communion. And in doing so, obviously, they destroyed the Sacrifice of the Mass too.

The New Mass isn’t necessarily invalid. It is poisoned. Poisoned by these bad principles, poisoned because it makes the idea of sacrifice disappear, the sacrifice of the cross. But this is of capital importance, you see. It’s at the very root of Catholicism. Catholicism is essentially based on the cross. If we no longer have the notion of the Sacrifice of the Cross and of the Sacrifice of the Mass continuing the Sacrifice of the Cross, we’re no longer Catholic. That’s where we find all the all the resources of grace, in the cross of Our Lord, in the opened Heart of Our Lord, in His head crowned with thorns, in His pierced hands. Yes, that’s where we’ll find all the graces of the Resurrection, of the Redemption which we all need. If we suppress the Sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ on our altars, if our altars no longer reproduce the sacrifice of the cross of Our Lord, they are nothing more than “a eucharist,” a meal, a sharing, a “communion” - it’s no longer the spirit of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is essentially founded on the cross, on the spirit of sacrifice. And what is the spirit of sacrifice which is disappearing - you will recognise what I’m saying, all around you - nobody wants to sacrifice himself any more, to mortify himself. People want to play, they want to profit and enjoy life. This is true of Catholics as well. Why? Because the spirit of self-sacrifice is no longer there, the cross is no longer there. And if the cross isn’t there, the Catholic Church isn’t there.

This is extremely serious, it’s a change of orientation which took place during the Council. Perhaps some of them had a good intention, but they certainly weren’t inspired by the Holy Ghost. So they had a desire to cosy up to the Protestants - what happened? The Catholics became Protestants and the Protestants didn’t become Catholic. So, they took up this spirit which destroys the sacrifice of the cross. But since the priest is made to offer the sacrifice of the cross, to continue this sacrifice of the cross, the priest too was affected in the same way.

He was no longer the man of sacrifice. He was now the man of sharing, the man of gathering, the man of communion. He was the social compere. He is no longer the man of the sacrifice of the cross. And this is a considerable change, you see. It’s another spirit, it is no longer the spirit of the Catholic Church.

Please make sure you tell each other these things, my dear brethren. It’s sad, very sad, painful, we are dying of how sad and painful it is every day, to think that the Church is infested by this spirit which is destroying her. It’s what Paul VI himself called the “auto-demolition of the Church,” yes, the self destruction of the Church, the Church is destroying herself. So we have to take note of these things, don’t we? And unfortunately, we notice them more and more every day. There is no hope of redress for the time being, apparently. Seminaries are in a lamentable state. Vocations are very few and far between and where they do exist, the seminarians are badly formed, because they aren’t being formed for the sacrifice of the Mass.

They’re being de-formed. Why? There’s very little hope for the moment other than by prayer and in God’s help which will arrive one day, and in the resolve which we must have to remain Catholic and defend the Catholic Mass.

Perhaps you will tell me: ‘But Rome seems more accessible recently, more open to allowing us to say the old Mass, the Catholic Mass. So we shouldn’t have any more problems!’ But you see, we would be putting ourselves in a contradiction. Because at the same time as Rome gives, for instance, to the Fraternity of St Peter and to Le Barroux monastery and other groups, permission to say the Traditional Mass, at the same time they make them sign a ‘Profession of Faith’ in which Council is inscribed and which they have to admit the spirit of the Council. It’s a contradiction because the spirit of the Council is expressed in the New Mass. How are they going to maintain the Traditional Mass by accepting the spirit which destroys the Traditional Mass? To do that is to put oneself in a complete contradiction and one day, softly-softly, Rome will require those to whom they gave permission for Traditional Mass, they’ll require them to accept the New Mass in turn, to bring them into line with what they’ve signed. They signed to say that they accept the spirit of the Council and the reforms of the Council. One cannot live in contradiction like that, in such incredible illogicality. It’s a totally uncomfortable situation which is the source of difficulty for these groups who now find that they are in a sort of dead-end.

The only logical attitude for keeping the Catholic Faith is keeping the Catholic Mass. This Traditional Catholic Mass is against to the spirit of the Council, against ecumenism, against collegiality, and also against the liberalism found in the Council. Our Mass is the Mass of sacrifice, there is only one sacrifice which opens the gate of heaven for us. Tu devicto mortis aculeo aperuisti credentibus regna caelorum - Thou overcamest the sting of death and hast opened to believers the Kingdom of Heaven. Thou hast led us to heaven by the cross. The cross is the way which leads us to heaven.

The sacrifice of Our Lord is the royal road which leads us to eternity. There is no other. There is no other! There is no Religious Liberty in the sense that one can choose one’s religion. That doesn’t exist! There is only one religion, because there is only one road which leads us to heaven: the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ. And the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ is the True Mass, the Traditional Mass. So if we want to stay Catholic, we have to keep the Mass of the sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ. And if we want to keep this Mass, we need to have Catholic priests, priests who believe in it. Which means we have to have Catholic seminaries, which is what we have: our Catholic seminaries which prepare men to offer this sacrifice of the cross and to unite all the faithful around Our Lord Jesus Christ and take them to heaven via the royal road of the cross. That’s it. We can’t live in illogicality. And in order to have Catholic priests you need Catholic bishops, there’s no choice in the matter. That’s why it seemed to us absolutely necessary and indispensable to give you Catholic bishops. Catholic bishops, Catholic priests, Catholic Mass, Catholic faithful, Catholic children: that’s the Church! That’s the Catholic Church. But if something is lacking, if we didn’t have Catholic bishops, we wouldn’t have Catholic priests. And without Catholic priests, we wouldn’t have the Catholic Mass. And if there’s no Catholic Mass any more, we can’t go to heaven any more, the gates of heaven are closed. Yes, we have to be logical.

So my dear brethren, let us make a resolution to remain Catholic, you see, and to refuse all compromise with this Conciliar spirit which is a spirit that leads to apostasy - yes! - which leads to apostasy! Millions and millions, tens of millions of Catholics have abandoned the Catholic Faith and joined sects, in South America, in North America, in Europe, all over the place [missing piece of audio 24:50]. ...we don’t want to apostatise, why don’t we want to compromise with this spirit which destroys the Mass which is the spirit of the Second Vatican Council.

And let us entrust ourselves, my dear brethren, to the most Blessed Virgin Mary, asking her to make sure that there are lots of vocations, and that she keep these children and young people, these young people here, the choir there as well who charm us with their singing. And I’m not only speaking about priestly vocations: we also need religious vocations, but since I was speaking about the priesthood I spoke particularly about priestly vocations. And it’s in these Catholic schools which we will find future Catholic priests, that’s clear. IT’s also in your families, in your Catholic families with lots of children, that’s where beautiful vocations will be born and future Catholic families too. That’s the Catholic Church.

May the most Blessed Virgin Mary keep you in the Faith. Did you know that in Fribourg, in Switzerland, in Bishop Charriere’s diocese, the diocese where we founded the Society, we were going to make a pilgrimage - I don’t know if maybe some of you know this pilgrimage, - to Notre Dame de Bourguillon in Fribourg. Do you know what they call Notre Dame de Bourguillon? “Our Lady, Guardian of the Faith”! Could we find a more beautiful pilgrimage, to begin our priestly society than the pilgrimage to Our Lady of Bourguillon, Guardian of the Faith? It’s inscribed on the medal: “Notre Dame de Bourguillon, Gardienne de la Foi.” And that’s where I did the first ordinations. The first minor ordinations, I did them in this sanctuary, the sanctuary of Our Lady, Guardian of the Faith. What a wonder. So, let’s ask Our Lady of Bourgiuillon, let us ask the Guardian of the Faith to keep us in the Catholic Faith all the way up to our death, like all the martyrs who gave their lives, who gave their blood, to keep the Faith, who weren’t afraid to shed their blood. We too have to be prepared to give our lives if we have to, for the Faith, in Our Lord Jesus Christ, in His sacrifice, in His Church, in His Mass, His priesthood, is that not so? Let us therefore pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she send us lots of vocations so that we can give you the priests that you desire.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.]]> The Recusant #65 - Epiphany 2026:

Translated for the Recusant from the original, here.

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
Sermon at Friedrichshafen,
Good Shepherd Sunday, 1990

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

My dear brother bishops, dear friends, dear fellow priests, dear faithful, Let us give thanks to God today for this magnificent day, this magnificent assembly on this feast of the Good Shepherd. I think that Providence couldn’t have allowed us to have a more significant day than this, a day which give the subject of this sermon: the Good Shepherd. Before I give you a few words of encouragement on this subject, I would like also to thank all those who organised this magnificent day, this gathering. And you, my dear faithful, didn’t hesitate to come from far away, some of you had a long journey getting here, to come and assist at this Catholic ceremony, a ceremony which unites us in the Catholic Faith and in the love of the Catholic Church. I congratulate you with all my heart. And with what emotion I went up and down amongst you just now and I noticed how many children are present here. That’s precisely the witness which the Catholic Church gives, which the Catholic family gives: a Catholic family is a family where there are lots of children. Also, I congratulate you with all my heart, dear Catholic families, for bringing your children who will remember this beautiful gathering in Friedrichshafen. You have come, my dear faithful, particularly to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the foundation of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X.

Twenty years ago - to be exact it will be this November - that our SSPX was officially recognised by Bishop Charriere, bishop of Fribourg, Switzerland. So it was twenty years ago that the SSPX was born, developed and began forming good priests, true shepherds, good shepherds. That’s why the SSPX was founded, to produce good shepherds, good priests. But what is a priest, my dear faithful? The priest according to the spirit of the Catholic Church, according to the definition of the Catholic Church, is he who offers the Sacrifice of the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ. He has the power, by the grace of the Sacrament of Holy Orders which he receives, to offer the same Sacrifice which Our Lord Jesus Christ offered on the cross. So the priest is one who has power over God Himself, over the Word of God Incarnate, power to make Him come down onto the altar to renew His sacrifice. An extraordinary, incredible power. Poor creatures that we are, feeble creatures, and yet we have power over God, the Creator of the universe, who created everything, who created us. The power to make Him come down onto the altar and renew His Sacrifice.

And by that same fact, there is the second power which a priest has, by virtue of the fact that he has power over the physical body of Our Lord, His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, the priest has a power over the Mystical Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, he can bring all men, all humanity, to Our Lord Jesus Christ, to participate in His Sacrifice and therefore to prepare these souls through the sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, to give them the sacraments which prepare souls to worthily receive Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator and Redeemer. That’s what the work of a priest is, that’s what a Catholic priest is and always has been. We need to remind ourselves of that, and the SSPX has no other goal than the formation of such priests, priests who will one days have, through the grace of their ordination, a power over God Himself, over the Incarnate Word, to offer His Sacrifice, to unite themselves to His Sacrifice, and to give Our Lord Jesus Christ to souls.

But my dear faithful, are we dreaming? Is it possible that a human creation can have such a power? Yes, that’s what the priest has. What a dignity is the priestly dignity! What an ideal is the priestly ideal! A magnificent ideal! And we would like, and we have tried over these past twenty years, to breath into these young Levites, these young seminarians, a love for their vocation and for Our Lord Jesus Christ, so that they can truly be the priests that you desire, that you wish for, the priests which you need.

Was it really necessary, my dear faithful, to found this Society of St Pius X? Weren’t there already enough seminaries in the world? Weren’t there enough congregations with their own seminarians? Was the foundation of this Society really urgent? My dear brethren, the object of the most persistent attacks, the most evil attacks of the devil in the Church is his attack on the priesthood. The devil hates true priests, hates the true priesthood and hates the true Mass. He hates the Mass which is the cross of Christ because he was defeated by Our Lord’s cross. Ever since then he has not ceased attacking the priesthood, so as to destroy the Mass, because he
knows that we will defeat him through the Mass. Just as Our Lord defeated him with the cross, we priests too will defeat the devil with the cross. And the whole history of the Church proves this and shows this, in every century: the attacks of the devil against the priest. But we can say that the attacks against priests were done above all either through schisms, like that of Luther, who destroyed the priesthood and thus the altar. So after the Council of Trent a whole legion of Saints arose, St Vincent de Paul, St Charles Borromeo, St Peter Canisius, St John Eudes, and so many others, so many holy priests, who founded good seminaries and who wanted to
give the Church true priests, the true priesthood, and they had many of them.

But I think that the devil’s power has never been so great as it is in our times. Never have the devil’s attacks been as deep, as clever or as destructive as in our time. Why? Because he has made use of the Church’s authority to destroy the priesthood. Up to that point he had ever managed that. Yes, in our times, the devil is making use of the Church’s authority to destroy the priesthood and the altar. That’s a fact. It’s not something which might happen in the future, it’s something which we’ve witnessed ourselves.

And how did it happen? Well, by calling a Council which would have a spirit close to Protestantism, Protestantism which destroys the priesthood and the sacrifice of the altar because Protestants don’t believe in the priesthood, they don’t believe in the Sacrifice of the Mass as being a sacrifice which makes reparation for sins. They destroyed the Mass and the priesthood.

So the devil succeeded in somehow making those in authority in the Church favourable to this destructive spirit entering the Church, through ecumenism. So, in order to get close to the Protestants - because that’s what ecumenism is - they made this New Mass. A New Mass. Why a New Mass? The Church’s Mass which was said for twenty centuries, they changed it, saying explicitly that they were doing so in order to eventually concelebrate with the Protestants and have a sort of inter-communion. And in doing so, obviously, they destroyed the Sacrifice of the Mass too.

The New Mass isn’t necessarily invalid. It is poisoned. Poisoned by these bad principles, poisoned because it makes the idea of sacrifice disappear, the sacrifice of the cross. But this is of capital importance, you see. It’s at the very root of Catholicism. Catholicism is essentially based on the cross. If we no longer have the notion of the Sacrifice of the Cross and of the Sacrifice of the Mass continuing the Sacrifice of the Cross, we’re no longer Catholic. That’s where we find all the all the resources of grace, in the cross of Our Lord, in the opened Heart of Our Lord, in His head crowned with thorns, in His pierced hands. Yes, that’s where we’ll find all the graces of the Resurrection, of the Redemption which we all need. If we suppress the Sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ on our altars, if our altars no longer reproduce the sacrifice of the cross of Our Lord, they are nothing more than “a eucharist,” a meal, a sharing, a “communion” - it’s no longer the spirit of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is essentially founded on the cross, on the spirit of sacrifice. And what is the spirit of sacrifice which is disappearing - you will recognise what I’m saying, all around you - nobody wants to sacrifice himself any more, to mortify himself. People want to play, they want to profit and enjoy life. This is true of Catholics as well. Why? Because the spirit of self-sacrifice is no longer there, the cross is no longer there. And if the cross isn’t there, the Catholic Church isn’t there.

This is extremely serious, it’s a change of orientation which took place during the Council. Perhaps some of them had a good intention, but they certainly weren’t inspired by the Holy Ghost. So they had a desire to cosy up to the Protestants - what happened? The Catholics became Protestants and the Protestants didn’t become Catholic. So, they took up this spirit which destroys the sacrifice of the cross. But since the priest is made to offer the sacrifice of the cross, to continue this sacrifice of the cross, the priest too was affected in the same way.

He was no longer the man of sacrifice. He was now the man of sharing, the man of gathering, the man of communion. He was the social compere. He is no longer the man of the sacrifice of the cross. And this is a considerable change, you see. It’s another spirit, it is no longer the spirit of the Catholic Church.

Please make sure you tell each other these things, my dear brethren. It’s sad, very sad, painful, we are dying of how sad and painful it is every day, to think that the Church is infested by this spirit which is destroying her. It’s what Paul VI himself called the “auto-demolition of the Church,” yes, the self destruction of the Church, the Church is destroying herself. So we have to take note of these things, don’t we? And unfortunately, we notice them more and more every day. There is no hope of redress for the time being, apparently. Seminaries are in a lamentable state. Vocations are very few and far between and where they do exist, the seminarians are badly formed, because they aren’t being formed for the sacrifice of the Mass.

They’re being de-formed. Why? There’s very little hope for the moment other than by prayer and in God’s help which will arrive one day, and in the resolve which we must have to remain Catholic and defend the Catholic Mass.

Perhaps you will tell me: ‘But Rome seems more accessible recently, more open to allowing us to say the old Mass, the Catholic Mass. So we shouldn’t have any more problems!’ But you see, we would be putting ourselves in a contradiction. Because at the same time as Rome gives, for instance, to the Fraternity of St Peter and to Le Barroux monastery and other groups, permission to say the Traditional Mass, at the same time they make them sign a ‘Profession of Faith’ in which Council is inscribed and which they have to admit the spirit of the Council. It’s a contradiction because the spirit of the Council is expressed in the New Mass. How are they going to maintain the Traditional Mass by accepting the spirit which destroys the Traditional Mass? To do that is to put oneself in a complete contradiction and one day, softly-softly, Rome will require those to whom they gave permission for Traditional Mass, they’ll require them to accept the New Mass in turn, to bring them into line with what they’ve signed. They signed to say that they accept the spirit of the Council and the reforms of the Council. One cannot live in contradiction like that, in such incredible illogicality. It’s a totally uncomfortable situation which is the source of difficulty for these groups who now find that they are in a sort of dead-end.

The only logical attitude for keeping the Catholic Faith is keeping the Catholic Mass. This Traditional Catholic Mass is against to the spirit of the Council, against ecumenism, against collegiality, and also against the liberalism found in the Council. Our Mass is the Mass of sacrifice, there is only one sacrifice which opens the gate of heaven for us. Tu devicto mortis aculeo aperuisti credentibus regna caelorum - Thou overcamest the sting of death and hast opened to believers the Kingdom of Heaven. Thou hast led us to heaven by the cross. The cross is the way which leads us to heaven.

The sacrifice of Our Lord is the royal road which leads us to eternity. There is no other. There is no other! There is no Religious Liberty in the sense that one can choose one’s religion. That doesn’t exist! There is only one religion, because there is only one road which leads us to heaven: the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ. And the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ is the True Mass, the Traditional Mass. So if we want to stay Catholic, we have to keep the Mass of the sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ. And if we want to keep this Mass, we need to have Catholic priests, priests who believe in it. Which means we have to have Catholic seminaries, which is what we have: our Catholic seminaries which prepare men to offer this sacrifice of the cross and to unite all the faithful around Our Lord Jesus Christ and take them to heaven via the royal road of the cross. That’s it. We can’t live in illogicality. And in order to have Catholic priests you need Catholic bishops, there’s no choice in the matter. That’s why it seemed to us absolutely necessary and indispensable to give you Catholic bishops. Catholic bishops, Catholic priests, Catholic Mass, Catholic faithful, Catholic children: that’s the Church! That’s the Catholic Church. But if something is lacking, if we didn’t have Catholic bishops, we wouldn’t have Catholic priests. And without Catholic priests, we wouldn’t have the Catholic Mass. And if there’s no Catholic Mass any more, we can’t go to heaven any more, the gates of heaven are closed. Yes, we have to be logical.

So my dear brethren, let us make a resolution to remain Catholic, you see, and to refuse all compromise with this Conciliar spirit which is a spirit that leads to apostasy - yes! - which leads to apostasy! Millions and millions, tens of millions of Catholics have abandoned the Catholic Faith and joined sects, in South America, in North America, in Europe, all over the place [missing piece of audio 24:50]. ...we don’t want to apostatise, why don’t we want to compromise with this spirit which destroys the Mass which is the spirit of the Second Vatican Council.

And let us entrust ourselves, my dear brethren, to the most Blessed Virgin Mary, asking her to make sure that there are lots of vocations, and that she keep these children and young people, these young people here, the choir there as well who charm us with their singing. And I’m not only speaking about priestly vocations: we also need religious vocations, but since I was speaking about the priesthood I spoke particularly about priestly vocations. And it’s in these Catholic schools which we will find future Catholic priests, that’s clear. IT’s also in your families, in your Catholic families with lots of children, that’s where beautiful vocations will be born and future Catholic families too. That’s the Catholic Church.

May the most Blessed Virgin Mary keep you in the Faith. Did you know that in Fribourg, in Switzerland, in Bishop Charriere’s diocese, the diocese where we founded the Society, we were going to make a pilgrimage - I don’t know if maybe some of you know this pilgrimage, - to Notre Dame de Bourguillon in Fribourg. Do you know what they call Notre Dame de Bourguillon? “Our Lady, Guardian of the Faith”! Could we find a more beautiful pilgrimage, to begin our priestly society than the pilgrimage to Our Lady of Bourguillon, Guardian of the Faith? It’s inscribed on the medal: “Notre Dame de Bourguillon, Gardienne de la Foi.” And that’s where I did the first ordinations. The first minor ordinations, I did them in this sanctuary, the sanctuary of Our Lady, Guardian of the Faith. What a wonder. So, let’s ask Our Lady of Bourgiuillon, let us ask the Guardian of the Faith to keep us in the Catholic Faith all the way up to our death, like all the martyrs who gave their lives, who gave their blood, to keep the Faith, who weren’t afraid to shed their blood. We too have to be prepared to give our lives if we have to, for the Faith, in Our Lord Jesus Christ, in His sacrifice, in His Church, in His Mass, His priesthood, is that not so? Let us therefore pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she send us lots of vocations so that we can give you the priests that you desire.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.]]> <![CDATA[Abp. Lefebvre - Fourth Sunday of Advent]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6730 Mon, 23 Dec 2024 08:31:22 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6730 Abp. Lefebvre - Fourth Sunday of Advent

]]> Abp. Lefebvre - Fourth Sunday of Advent

]]> <![CDATA[Archbishop Lefebvre 1988: Conference in Sierre, Switzerland]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6434 Tue, 03 Sep 2024 12:50:20 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6434 The Recusant, Issue #62 - Autumn 2024 [slightly adapted]:

This conference was given by Archbishop Lefebvre at the priory in Sierre, Switzerland, on 27th November 1988, just a few months after the episcopal consecrations. The title (“Le libéralisme, le pire ennemi de l’Église”) and subtitles are from Fideliter in which it first appeared. The remainder of the text is as it was spoken. The translation is our own.

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre:

“Liberalism, the Church’s Worst Enemy!”

This year has been full of sensational events and serious decisions, both for me and for you, who are suffering the consequences because of your attachment to the Society and to Tradition. Why such decisions? Because the situation is very serious. It is not twenty years old, but it is very old.

THE SUPPORTERS OF THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN THE CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION

After the French Revolution, some wanted to come to terms with the principles of the Revolution and compromise with the enemies of the Church; others refused this arrangement because Our Lord Jesus Christ warned us: ‘He who is not with me is against me’. If you are for the reign of Jesus Christ, then, you are against His enemies. To begin with, there were those who claimed that it was possible not to speak of Our Lord while continuing to love Him, so that they could make alliances and pacts. But the popes, right up to the Second Vatican Council, disapproved.

JESUS CHRIST ONLY GOD, ONLY KING

Our Lord is our King, our God. He must therefore reign supreme, not only in private over our persons, but also in our families, our villages and the whole country. In any case, whether we like it or not, one day He will be our Judge: when He comes on the clouds to judge the whole world, all men will be on their knees, Buddhists, Muslims, everyone. For there are not many gods, but only one, as we sing in the Gloria: Tu solus sanctus, Tu solus Altissimus Jesu Christe. He came down from heaven to save us, He reigns in heaven, we will see Him when we die.

DIVISION AMONG CATHOLICS - THE ‘LIBERAL CATHOLICS’

The French Revolution brought about a real division, which had already begun with the Protestants. A whole class of intellectuals rose up against Our Lord, in a veritable diabolical plot against His reign, which they no longer wanted to hear about.

They allowed us to honour Him in our chapels and sacristies, but not outside them. Our Lord was no longer to be spoken of in the courts, or in schools, or in hospitals - in a word, anywhere. They would say, for example: ‘You offend Buddhists with your Lord Jesus Christ. Since they don't believe in it, leave them alone. Why put Jesus Christ everywhere?’ But Our Lord has the right to reign everywhere, and in Catholic countries He is the master. And we must try to make Him reign as much as possible, to convert those who do not yet know and love Him, so that they too become His subjects, and so that in heaven they recognise their Master.

Thus, since the French Revolution, Catholics have been divided between those who accept that Our Lord should be honoured in families and parishes, but not outside them, and those who want Our Lord to reign everywhere. The former, to justify no longer talking about Our Lord in society, relied on the freedom to believe or not to believe. But that's not true, we're not free to believe what we want. Our Lord said it well: ‘He who believes will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned.’ Of course we can misuse this freedom, but then we are disobeying and moving away from God. So morally we are not free, we must honour Our Lord and follow His teachings.

THE POPES HAVE CONDEMNED THE LIBERALS

These are the people who have been called liberals because they were in favour of freedom, leaving everyone the right to think what they want according to their conscience. But the popes have always condemned this liberalism, stating emphatically that there is no more freedom of conscience than there is freedom to do good or evil. Of course we can disobey. A child can disobey his parents, but does he have the right to do so? Obviously not.

It's the same thing with religion. We must all obey Our Lord, and therefore the only true religion. Of course there are people who disobey, but we must try to convert them and bring them to obey Our Lord, the only true God, who will judge us all. Now this liberal current was developed by Catholics like Lamennais who was a priest, hence a division within the Church itself. But popes such as Pius IX, Leo XIII, Saint Pius X, Pius XI and Pius XII have always condemned these liberals as the worst enemies of the Church because they detach people, families and states from Our Lord Jesus Christ.

When Our Lord is no longer present in schools, hospitals, justice systems or governments, when He is absent from the public atmosphere, then we have apostasy and atheism. People get into the habit of no longer thinking about Our Lord because He is nowhere to be seen, and little by little this forgetfulness spreads, even into families.

At the moment, in which restaurants or hotels, for example, do you find the Cross of Our Lord? Personally, I travel a lot, and only in Austria have I found a beautiful crucifix in certain restaurants, or a beautiful image of the Blessed Virgin in the hotel room. Elsewhere it’s all gone, and yet there was a time when there used to be no house without a crucifix. Now even good Catholics are afraid to put one in their homes, for fear of the reaction of those who don't like the Christian religion. That’s where we’re getting to by gently driving Our Lord away.

ENEMIES WITHIN THE CHURCH

Saint Pius X, at the beginning of the century, said that now the enemies of the Church are no longer only outside, but also within. By this he meant those Catholics who no longer want the public reign of Our Lord.

But that was not all. Since there were even modernist professors in the seminaries who wanted to adapt to the modern world, with its rejection of Our Lord and its apostasy, Saint Pius X asked that they be removed from the seminaries so that they would not influence the seminarians who, once they became priests, would in turn spread bad doctrines. And Saint Pius X was right, because that’s what happened. The bishops didn't want to pay any attention and these modern ideas were slowly introduced into the seminaries, then into the clergy and finally everywhere. In the name of freedom they stopped talking about Our Lord and apostasy ensued!

In 1926, I was at the seminary in Rome, more than sixty years ago, under Pius XI, who was also fighting and condemning priests who were in favour of secularism. In that year, a ‘Week Against Liberalism’ was held in Rome, during which two small books were published: Libéralisme et Catholicisme by Father Roussel and Le Christ Roi de Nations by Father
Philippe.

Here is the introduction to the first:

Quote:‘We want Jesus Christ, Son of God and Redeemer of mankind, to reign not only over the individual, but over families large and small, over nations and the entire social order; this is the great thought that unites us especially this week.’ - this was in 1926 - ‘From this social reign of Jesus the King, a reign legitimate in itself and necessary for us, there is no more formidable adversary by its cunning, its tenacity, its influence, than modern Liberalism’.

The enemy has been named: these liberals who want freedom of thought. If everyone has the right to his own thoughts, no one should offend his neighbour by displaying his own, so we must say nothing more, and we no longer have the right to speak of Our Lord.

HOW CAN WE STILL BE MISSIONARIES?

So how can we be missionaries if we can no longer speak of Our Lord? It’s impossible; and in a nation that is 95% Catholic, we will no longer be allowed to speak of Our Lord because 5% are Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist or Muslim. It’s unbelievable, and yet that’s how it is. In Catholic schools, because there is one Jew, two or three Muslims or Protestants, the crucifixes are taken down, Our Lord is no longer spoken of, and prayers are no longer said before classes, because this could disturb non-Catholics. So Our Lord no longer has the right to exist because two or three disagree with Him. So what are the origins of this liberalism, its main manifestations, its logical development?

How can it be qualified and refuted? These are the questions to which Father Roussel gives the answers in his very interesting book, which we give to all our seminarians so that they are aware of these modern errors. This liberalism, secularism and lack of public submission to Our Lord have spread despite the Popes, because bishops and priests have not listened to them enough. The second little book published to mark this ‘Week Against Liberalism’ in Rome is the ‘Catechism of Divine Rights in the Social Order’ under the title ‘Christ, the King of Nations’ by Father Philippe, a Redemptorist, whose preface reads as follows:

Quote:‘The Catholic Week at the beginning of 1926, organised by the Apostolic League, entrusted us with a desire, that of possessing a catechism setting out the fact and nature of the kingship of Jesus Christ; it is in response to this desire that these pages are being published. Under the pretext of following the lights of conscience alone, we have got into the habit of leaving the fulfilment of all duties to the free disposition of conscience: the rights of truth and especially those of the Supreme Truth are trampled underfoot.

Our catechism calls for a great act of faith, the act of faith in God and in Jesus Christ intervened by authority. People must know that in all relations between man and man, between society and society, between country and country, in everything that constitutes the innermost being of a nation, they depend on God and on Jesus Christ. On this point, as on the very existence of God, we must all bow our heads and repeat the Creed with all our soul. God has blessed our work, and in less than six months we were able to sell out our first edition, thanks to the self-imposed propaganda of our zealots’.

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre:

“Liberalism, the Church’s Worst Enemy!”

Quote:‘We want Jesus Christ, Son of God and Redeemer of mankind, to reign not only over the individual, but over families large and small, over nations and the entire social order; this is the great thought that unites us especially this week.’ - this was in 1926 - ‘From this social reign of Jesus the King, a reign legitimate in itself and necessary for us, there is no more formidable adversary by its cunning, its tenacity, its influence, than modern Liberalism’.

Quote:‘The Catholic Week at the beginning of 1926, organised by the Apostolic League, entrusted us with a desire, that of possessing a catechism setting out the fact and nature of the kingship of Jesus Christ; it is in response to this desire that these pages are being published. Under the pretext of following the lights of conscience alone, we have got into the habit of leaving the fulfilment of all duties to the free disposition of conscience: the rights of truth and especially those of the Supreme Truth are trampled underfoot.

Our catechism calls for a great act of faith, the act of faith in God and in Jesus Christ intervened by authority. People must know that in all relations between man and man, between society and society, between country and country, in everything that constitutes the innermost being of a nation, they depend on God and on Jesus Christ. On this point, as on the very existence of God, we must all bow our heads and repeat the Creed with all our soul. God has blessed our work, and in less than six months we were able to sell out our first edition, thanks to the self-imposed propaganda of our zealots’.

All this was happening in 1926!

FREEMASONRY

Even then, priests were resisting, by fighting against the invading apostasy and defending Our Lord against the secularisation of all institutions. Leo XIII, in his encyclical Humanum Genus, wrote that the Freemasons’ aim was to deChristianise everything, especially institutions, and that they wanted to remove Our Lord from everywhere. All this developed in spite of the Popes, and led to the Second Vatican Council.

THE PREPARATION OF THE COUNCIL: THE LIBERAL BISHOPS

Here too there was division, even within the Church. These liberals, who no longer wanted Our Lord to be spoken of in society and who, on the contrary, wanted freedom for all religions and all systems of thought, created opposition between the cardinals right from the preparation of the Council. The Holy See had set up commissions, headed by the ‘Central Preparatory Commission for the Council,’ of which I was a member.

It sat from 1960 to 1962, and was made up of seventy cardinals and around twenty archbishops and bishops, and if I sat on it, it was in my capacity as President of the Assembly of Archbishops and Bishops of French West Africa. Pope John XXIII often presided over our meetings.

But I must say, it was like a battlefield. Who was going to win? The liberals or the true Catholics who were with all the popes in their condemnation of liberalism? On the one hand, some wanted the Church to declare publicly their thesis on freedom, the neutrality of public bodies, and the absence of Our Lord Jesus Christ from public life. On the other hand, there were strong reactions to the contrary. Shouldn't we Catholics have the right to have our own Catholic States, so as not to offend the Muslim, Buddhist and Protestant religions that are expanding? And all this under the pretext of not doing them wrong, when they themselves are busy doing it publicly?

In Protestant states, for example, people are publicly Protestant. The Swiss canton of Vaud has written into its constitution that Protestantism is the state religion. The same is true of Sweden, Norway, England, Holland and Denmark, where Protestantism is the only religion publicly recognised by the State.

THE LIBERALS ABOLISH CATHOLIC STATES

So shouldn't we have the right to have our own Catholic states too? The Swiss canton of Valais was 90% Catholic. Since the Liberals won at the Council, and now dominate in Rome, they asked Monsignor Adam (whom I knew well and who was a good friend), via the nuncio in Berne, to do away with the Catholic canton of Valais. The Valais Constitution stated that the Catholic religion was the only religion publicly recognised by the State; in short, it was an affirmation that Our Lord Jesus Christ was the King of the Valais. And Monsignor Adam, favourable as he was to Tradition, he who had fought during the Council in favour of the social reign of Our Lord, wrote a letter to all his faithful, asking the State of Valais to change its constitution and become officially neutral.

I asked about this and was told that it had come from the Nuncio. So I went to see him in Berne and he confirmed that Bishop Adam had indeed acted on his orders. ‘And you're not ashamed to ask that Our Lord Jesus Christ no longer reign in the Valais?’ ‘Oh, but now it’s no longer possible, you understand, it’s no longer possible.’

And Protestants, are you going to ask them to stop recognising their Protestantism as an official religion in the canton of Vaud or in Denmark?

And don't we Catholics have the right to have states in which the Catholic religion is the only one publicly recognised? - ‘Ah, that's no longer possible!’ - What about the magnificent encyclical Quas Primas, in which Pius XI reminds us that Our Lord Jesus Christ must reign in all states and over all nations? - ‘Oh, the Pope wouldn't write that now!’ Oh, for example! This encyclical was written in 1925 by Pius XI to remind all bishops of the doctrine on the social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and now some bishops are doing exactly the opposite.

And that, unfortunately, is what has happened: officially, the canton of Valais is no longer a Catholic state. The Church is no longer recognised, in the same way as any other private association, just like other religions, which have the right to organise themselves in the Valais.

CARDINAL BEA, SPOKESMAN FOR THE LIBERALS

How did it happen?

One day Cardinal Ottaviani and Cardinal Bea brought us two booklets worth their weight in gold. These two booklets represent the two camps in the Church: one is the French Revolution and the other is Catholic Tradition. One is that of Cardinal Bea, a liberal, the other that of Cardinal Ottaviani, prefect of the Commission.

In his document, Cardinal Ottaviani talks about ‘religious tolerance’. In other words, if there are other religions in Catholic states, we tolerate them but we do not give them the same freedoms as the Church, just as we tolerate sins or errors, because we cannot expunge everything.

There has to be a certain tolerance in society, but that doesn't mean we approve of evil. When the time came for Cardinal Ottaviani to present his document to the Central Preparatory Commission for the Council, which simply repeated the doctrine still taught by the Catholic Church, Cardinal Bea stood up and said he was against it. Cardinal Ruffini of Sicily intervened to stop this little scandal of two cardinals violently opposing each other in front of everyone else. He asked that the matter be referred to the higher authority, i.e. the Pope, who was not presiding over the session that day. But Cardinal Bea said no, I want us to vote on who is with me and who is with Cardinal Ottaviani.

So the vote was taken. The seventy cardinals, the bishops and the four superiors of religious orders who were there were divided roughly in half. Virtually all the Latin cardinals, Italians, Spaniards and South Americans, were in favour of Cardinal Ottaviani. On the other hand, the American, English, German and French cardinals were for Cardinal Bea. The Church was thus divided on a fundamental theme of its doctrine: the Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

But that was our last session, and one wondered what the Council itself would be like if half of the seventy cardinals were in favour of Cardinal Ottaviani’s religious tolerance, and the other half were already in favour of Cardinal Bea’s religious freedom, which referred to the French Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Well, at the Council there was also a struggle, and it has to be said that the liberals won. What a scandal! And so came this new religion, descended more from the French Revolution than from Catholic Tradition, this famous ecumenism where all religions are on the same footing. Now you can understand the current situation, it stems from the victory of the liberals at the Council. There was, however, vehement opposition, but since the Pope practically sided with freedom, then it was the liberals who took over the positions in Rome and who still occupy them.

I have always opposed this, along with Monsignor Sigaud, Monsignor de Castro Mayer and many other members of the Council. For we cannot allow Our Lord to be uncrowned. The Church is founded on the principle that Our Lord must reign on earth as He reigns in Heaven. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, yes, may the will of Our Lord be done everywhere and not just in families. But now that liberalism reigns in Rome, the liberalism that our authors in 1926 described as the Church's worst enemy, we are witnessing the demolition of the Church.

There really is a rupture. But we are in communion with all the popes up to the Council, whereas Cardinal Bea gives no reference in his document. He could not refer to any pope, since his doctrine is new and, on the contrary, has always been condemned by them. In Cardinal Ottaviani's brochure, there are more pages of references than text, references to popes, councils and the entire doctrine of the Church. Religious tolerance is very much in line with Tradition.

The Church's faith has always been to preach the truth, and to tolerate error because it cannot do otherwise, while striving to be missionary, to reduce error and bring people back to the truth. But it has never said that you have as much right to be in error as in truth, that you have as much right to be a Buddhist as a Catholic. It’s not possible, or else the Catholic religion is no longer the only true religion. This is a fundamental catastrophe for the Church; we experienced this struggle at the Council and we are still experiencing it today.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF NEUTRALITY

Because when the Catholic Church is no longer the only one recognised, there are inevitably serious consequences, as can be seen in Valais, for example. Religions have become subservient to the state, whereas before it was the state that was subservient to religion, and governments have become the masters of religions. By affirming that the Catholic religion was the only one publicly recognised, Our Lord reigned, and the State could not do what it wanted. But now, with neutrality, religions are like simple private associations within the state, and the state can abolish them or intervene as a master, just as it prevents certain sects from setting up, for the time being, in Valais. Soon, however, permission will probably be granted to build Buddhist temples or mosques. When the State was Catholic, it refused the public temples of other religions. It tolerated private practice, but avoided the scandal of temples attracting Christians to these false religions. It protected the faith of its citizens.

Then, of course, there is immorality, because all these religions have morals that run counter to those of the Church: polygamy, divorce and other practices that run counter to Christian marriage. Protestantism, Buddhism... these are immoral religions, and their immorality ends up penetrating Catholics too. This is why the Catholic states made it a law to prevent them.

But in all the states that recognised only the Catholic Church - Colombia, Brazil, Chile, etc. - Rome intervened to allow all religions freedom. The result was the invasion of sects from North America with lots of dollars and money. Previously, in order to protect the faith of their fellow citizens, states prevented the entry of all these sects. But once the state no longer has a religion, and the Church demands that all religions be admitted, the doors are open. And we are witnessing an incredible invasion, Moonies, Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, so much so that the bishops themselves met in South America to discuss the seriousness of the situation.

Some say forty million, others sixty million South American Catholics have joined sects since 1968, i.e. since the Council! This is the terrible consequence of Cardinal Bea’s position: the apostasy of millions and millions of Catholics. And we're seeing the same thing everywhere else, like in France where we’re seeing more and more Catholics switching to Islam, sects or Masonic lodges.

This is general apostasy, which is why we are resisting, but the Roman authorities would like us to accept it. When I spoke to them in Rome, they wanted me to recognise religious freedom like Cardinal Bea. But I said no, I can't do that. My faith is that of Cardinal Ottaviani, faithful to all the popes, and not this new and still-condemned doctrine.

That’s our opposition, and that’s why we can't agree. It’s not so much the question of the Mass, because the Mass is precisely one of the consequences of the fact that they wanted to move closer to Protestantism and therefore transform worship, the sacraments, the catechism, etc…

THE BASIS OF OUR POSITION

The real fundamental opposition is the Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

‘Opportet Illum regnare’, Saint Paul tells us, Our Lord came to reign. They say no, and we say yes, along with all the popes. Our Lord did not come to be hidden inside houses without coming out. Why missionaries, so many of whom were massacred? To preach that Our Lord Jesus Christ is the only true God, to tell the pagans to convert. So the pagans wanted to make them disappear, but they didn't hesitate to give their lives to continue preaching Our Lord Jesus Christ. But now we’re meant to do the opposite, telling the pagans: ‘Your religion is good, keep it as long as you are good Buddhists, good Muslims or good pagans!’ That’s why we can't get along with them, because we are obeying Our Lord who said to the apostles: ‘Go and teach the Gospel to the ends of the earth’.

That's why we shouldn't be surprised that we can't get along with Rome. This will not be possible as long as Rome does not return to faith in the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ, as long as it gives the impression that all religions are good. We clash on a point of the Catholic faith, just as Cardinal Bea and Cardinal Ottaviani clashed over it, and as all the popes clashed with liberalism. It’s the same thing, the same current, the same ideas and the same divisions within the Church.

But before the Council, the popes and Rome supported Tradition against liberalism, whereas now the liberals have taken their place. Obviously they are against traditionalists, so we are persecuted. But we are at peace because we are in communion with all the popes since Our Lord and the Apostles. We are keeping their faith, and we're not going to switch now to the revolutionary faith in the Declaration of the Rights of Man. We do not want to be sons of 1789, but sons of Our Lord, sons of the Gospel.

The representatives of the Catholic Church say that everyone is free and that we can bring all religions together to pray, like in Assisi? This is an abomination, and the day when Our Lord gets angry it will be no laughing matter. For if Our Lord punished the Jews as He did, it was because they had refused to believe in Him. He had announced that Jerusalem would be razed to the ground, and Jerusalem was razed to the ground, and the temple has never been rebuilt since. He could well say the same thing now that all His pastors are against Him, they no longer want to believe in His universal reign.

We must remain attached to the doctrine of the Church. Remain attached to Our Lord who is everything to us. He is the Master, he is the one who will judge us as he will judge everyone else. So we must pray for His kingdom to come, even if we are persecuted.

Extraordinary as it may seem, that’s the situation today. I didn't invent it. Why do I find myself almost alone in opposing this liberalism when the vast majority of bishops, even in Rome, are in favour of it? It’s a great mystery. In remaining faithful, as before, to everything the popes have said, one finds oneself almost alone.

If you're with Our Lord, that's the main thing, even if you have to be alone. If you are with all the teaching of the Church over more than twenty centuries, you have nothing to fear. There's nothing to worry about, is there! Thanks be to God! The Good Lord, who knows the future, will set things right one day, because the Church cannot remain in this situation indefinitely.

So let’s put our trust in the Blessed Virgin and Our Lord, and let’s not be discouraged or worried, because we are carrying on the
Church. Let us remain in peace.

May the Good Lord bless you!

+ Marcel Lefebvre]]> <![CDATA[Archbishop Lefebvre 1989: Conferences at Avrillé]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6326 Wed, 24 Jul 2024 09:09:05 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6326

A partial transcript into English of the above French conference, taken from here:

Talk A. Morning Conference
Archbishop Lefebvre, Avrillé, Oct. 1989.

THE BEGINNING:

My dear friends, I wasn't expecting a public so numerous here, for this retreat, but I rejoice. I notice that your community is growing, so let's thank the Good God, and your confreres in the expansion of your dear Community. At the invitation, [he jokingly says]: not sure if we can call him 'prior'?, [chuckle from the audience] I accepted to give you some talks during this retreat of a few days. The fact that I started late and I will finish early...I should have been more generous but, for the reason that I am torn between demands here and there, and my schedule is very busy till the 19 November. Then after I will see - I will have time for prayer and reflection; also this will permit some writing, some means, trying to do good as best I can.

Therefore, during this retreat then, we must do the utmost good possible - confirm in your faith, confirm your vocation, confirm in your religious aspect - it is important. I want to discuss, in this instruction and perhaps the second one too, and expose the situation which we are in, because we are in this present history of the Church, we haven't chosen, but God has placed us in the here and now. We could have been living in the middle of the persecutions; or perhaps in an era when the Church was flourishing and at peace. For thirteen centuries, the Christian religion was really the Queen of this Christian Europe...we could have lived during those epochs. Oh! there were always many difficulties too, just as St. Dominic had some in his day, even if during his time it was considered an epoch of Christianity. Nevertheless, if we had trials in the course of the Church's history, combats, heresies, schisms, God has always raised up generous souls for those times, souls who make a constant effort to maintain, continue the Church that He founded, the Church which came forth from His Heart, wounded, truly, and so He will never abandon His Church.

We would not be wrong in saying these times in which we are living: 'the Church is in a grave situation'. Never the Church has experienced such trials that we presently have! I don't think so. Will it be the last one...the ultimate before the end of time? I don't know at all - I am not a prophet. In any case, it is certain that we must be conscious about this crisis in which the Church finds itself, the gravity of the crisis, so as to take the proper means to combat, since God has wanted to resuscitate groups, as yours, who have decided not to allow themselves to be invaded - neither the intelligence nor the will, nor the heart, by the current idealisms: of heresy, of apostasy, by sensualism, by rationalism, by Liberalism, of these modern errors - by a particular grace of the Good God...which God has chosen...to be possessors of the truth to continue the work of the Holy Catholic Church.

So, it is difficult to do a very succinct summary of this crisis, starting from the Council evidently, but in fact, the error goes back much further. It can be traced back to the origin of all the heresies, and especially, not only the machinations of men, but of the ' Order of Satan ' also, evidently. It is so clear that Satan labours without interruption, without respite, for the destruction of the Church. In certain epochs, sinister...he acted differently when dealing with persons filled of the grace of Our Lord, filled of the Holy Spirit, but it looks as if, in special moments, God seemingly allows him to captivate - he invades the world in such ways that he has become the absolute master. Happening in our epoch, isn't it so? It certainly looks like God have given satan liberty to act; we said this of Leo XIII. Leo XIII had a revelation pertaining to a crisis, a fight when satan would buffet the Church. It is said that God gave satan a hundred years, to act as he desired. We recognize that from Leo XIII's time till now, it is about one hundred years, and he has marvelously succeeded to settle his hand on the world, it is admirable!, on Christianity, which is even more grave, even on the Church, actually, on the men of the Church not the Church itself.

You know the history of the Church sufficiently...I don't want to repeat indefinitely. For sure, talk after talk this year, has sufficiently shown what was the French Revolution, the time of the Revolution, how this Revolution was conceived, how it was realized, and eventually how it began the destruction of the Church by the destruction of the Faith. I think that there is an act that manifests the Revolution and that is especially the "Goddess Reason", which was, if we may so speak "adored" in Notre Dame of Paris! An incredible scandal! which shows the spirit of the ones who made the Revolution: to adore Reason! to adore Man! the intention: to put man in the place of God. Place man instead of God - Put the rights of man instead of the rights of God. It is a radical revolt of man against God.

Just like the revolt of Satan against God, "Non serviam!", I will not serve!, well, this Revolution was nothing else than the application of this revolt of Satan...reason itself against the Faith! So, of course, they tried to massacre everything that supported the Faith in the past.

[TIME 9:34]
Beginning with the king; even if the king was not a perfect man, nevertheless he aided the Faith. The king was always (a constant king ?), a Catholic king. Already, even at the moment when the king was anointed, the voices of those who objected were raised, demanding: 'Let's put an end, do away with the consecration (Footnote 1), that this consecration didn't signify anything, useless, regrettable for the chief of state himself...it's no good to consecrate the king; what's the use?...a ceremony, a ceremony so religious; the king need not be consecrated; we shouldn't make of the king a sort of god'. Voices were raised to prevent [the leader Icseine? inaudible ]from performing the consecration.... [Icseine?] therefore decided on the contrary, (some wanted to make a scaled down ceremony at Notre Dame) and performed the consecration at Rheims and nowhere else. The King was consecrated, complete with all the ceremonies, with all the actions as the Church wanted. Because he felt he was the lieutenant of Our Lord Jesus-Christ on earth, to propagate the Faith, and to defend it; a real mission that he had to keep forever. Of course this was very upsetting for the spirit of those who wanted to do away with the Reign of Jesus-Christ, to abolish the reign of a Christian king; therefore the first step they took was to make the king disappear. Then it was the attempt to have all the servants of Our Lord disappear, as much as they could.

Then followed by the necessary step of replacing the Christian religion with new religion, a laïcité religion, a laicised religion - they replaced Christian feasts with profane feasts. There was a suffusion of this distinct spirit throughout all the nineteenth century; and the twentieth-century: laicism constantly making progress, progress, progress. At certain times, thanks to the pressure of faithful Catholics, of few men, such as Cardinal Pie stood up, who protested, struggled....faced with the resistance of the faithful population, the efforts of laïcisme diminished somewhat, but always the intention to return.

They succeeded at the beginning of this century, with the separation of Church and State and it must be noted that it was at that time when all the religious were chased from France. Not a trifling! It's enormous; when you consider the number of religious and nuns who found themselves in France at the beginning of this century. Actually, only four religious congregations were allowed: purely missionary congregations, like the Adem (?), the Holy Ghost Fathers were uniquely permitted only because they were missionary and the government worried that if these congregations would shrink, the influence of the Government in the Colonies would also diminish: so it was a purely political goal that allowed the four congregations...four congregations were maintained, but they were of the missionary kind. They realized that the missionaries wielded a great influence, what was taught, even politically, so they neither dared to oppress them, nor to chase them away.

All other Orders were chased away. A violent persecution, with an absolute and earnest will of laicising France more and more. And not only in France, but like this in all countries. Occupation of Cannes, occupation of Rome and so on...it was all of Europe, often aided by the Protestants, and by Freemasonary of course, succeeded, little by little, in laicising society in such a way that Our Lord has nothing to do, nothing! nothing to do with official society. I don't know if you can imagine... but, not so very long ago, one could see a crucifix in the tribunals - they had kept the Christ in the tribunals, there was a crucifix in the tribunals.

In the army, there were chaplains everywhere....they still possessed a certain Christian influence, in various official services of the state; but after the separation of Church and State it was over; it ended. Rampant tearing down of the Christ. This just kept progressing, even if there were a few respites, because of reactions, for a short while a few reactions, and then because of the efforts of Satan, and his henchmen, remarkably organized, and with Freemasonry which was constantly developing, they eventually conquered all of the Christian world - totally, so that actually Satan reigns by the intermediary of socialism, a political system which is diabolical, purely diabolical. With this program of laïcisation they infiltrated everywhere. Some efforts were renewed, with Franco, Salazar, de Valera in Ireland and others; a few presidents of Republics who were men still profoundly Christian and who upheld Christianity: all this blew up! finished, completely finished!

After this came the Council. Until then the Church resisted. The Church encouraged all those who held fast to Our Lord's social reign. At the very least, one could rely on Rome, priests, and bishops to defend the Social Reign of Our Lord Jesus-Christ. No one could have possibly imagined that a time would come, where those who were charged with defending the Reign of Our Lord would turn against Him. This!...This is the utmost pinnacle of the triumph of Satan! The masterstroke of Satan is the achievement of using the clerics, and using Rome, to destroy the Reign of Our Lord. This is what we have nowadays...

[Time 18:15]
What did they begin, these enemies of the Church, by the revolution?.. MARTYRDOM. Often there were martyrs, and the martyrdom of women, women martyred by the revolution...religious martyrdom. There are some who died miserably in France. They were martyrs of the revolution. Then the religious were persecuted and chased. Priests and religious were hunted down and martyred. But now, this is finished! They [clerics] are now at the service of the enemies of the Church. They shake hands with the enemies of the Church! to destroy the Reign of Our Lord Jesus-Christ.

How could this possibly be done? Well, by the invention of compromise. The Catholics began to compromise with the ideas of the Revolution. This work of Liberalism, under the pretext of Liberty, the liberty of man. Then we began to admit that, well..possibly, there might be some men who are against Our Lord, opposed to Our Lord, who were atheists. Opposed to Our Lord. Ah...well, they have the liberty, after all they have liberty...they have their consciences.

The real point is this: the day Catholics became this lax in principle and handed over the "carte blanche" to these enemies of the Church, it was already a considerable defeat for the world,. The combat has ceased against the enemies of the Church, against the enemies of Our Lord. The popes have denounced it throughout the XIX century, denounced this Liberalism, which transformed in Socialism, in Sillonism, in progressism, till it had penetrated to a greater extent. St Pius X had predicted, in his first encyclical, and said that no longer are there enemies outside the Church, but also enemies within. [Footnote 2] And where are those enemies? In the seminaries! In the seminaries...(inaudible) ...expressed tacitly that the enemy is in the seminaries. He implored the bishops: 'Chase all the modernist professors. All those who compromise with error: laïcisme, the anti-Christian errors...we must chase them, evidently, it 's easy to understand. How can professors who have no idea of the Social Reign of Our Lord Jesus-Christ, how can they teach priests to become militants, combatants for Our Lord?, for the Reign of Our Lord? How can they tell them when they say: 'I don't believe that anymore!' It is not possible.

And because they haven't listened to the (encyclical ? inaudible), they will keep those professors who diffuse these errors inside the seminaries. Now we have priests who are completely Modernists. They have acquired the modern liberty, acquired the modern errors. Very gently, they are convinced that societies have nothing to do with religion. Nothing at all. The political society has nothing to do with it. Not to be occupied with religion. All religions must be allowed, so consequently, without distinctions, thereby an eventual loss of the faith in Our Lord Jesus-Christ. If all religions are on an equal status in society then Our Lord, Boudah, and mo hahamed, all that is the same thing.

It is an apostasy, apostasy! They no longer hold to this saying, which is absolutely certain, constantly professed by the Church: Extra Ecclesia nulla salus, outside the Church no salvation. No salvation outside the Church. If there is no salvation outside the Church, Christian societies must strive to provide salvation for their citizens! Ah!...it is normal. Nowadays: Oh!...no no no. we don't have anything to do with that. As if the society wasn't created by God. God created it just like He created the family, He created civil society, He created the Church...the three societies which must work towards the good of souls and for the salvation of souls! It's clear...it's clear.

Eventually we witnessed (that truth ?) was abandoned in the seminaries; we longer teach in the seminaries of the holiness of Our Lord; that the christian religion is one of many religions: the missionary spirit has vanished. This spirit, this spirit destroyed in the priest. How is that possible?...to be a priest without being a missionary, is incomprehensible, incomprehensible, an enormous contradiction. Incredible isn't it?

What good could come from one of these priests who doesn't have faith in the oneness of the Catholic Church? The faith in the Church, sole means of salvation. What good could he do in your parish? (To demonstrate: at the battle front, how can a paraplegic fight?) So very slowly, very slowly, very slowly this spirit completely ruined the combat of the Church.

The invasion of this laïcité, everywhere, everywhere in the schools, by every powerful agency, by the media, by the cinema as soon as it was invented, the radio (...), all this has completed destroyed in the population this idea: that there is salvation only in Our Lord Jesus-Christ and in the Holy Church. Everything, everything completely laicised. Furthermore, the priests do not know a profound faith in their religion, it is evident that it was felt in their proper religion, it is evident, we now understand a sort of...destruction, the auto-destruction in the interior of the Church before even the Council, for sure.

The discouragement of the priests. I, I have seen it, I lived it. I experienced it as a bishop. I have seen it in my diocese, I saw these priests, particularly when I was at Puy(?). I felt it in the priests of France, a special interior discouragement. Some were happy, I can assure you, if we could have retaken having this conviction. In the missions, I hadn't quit the missions just because I was in France ,then in the small diocese of Tulle, it is a small diocese, it isn't a large diocese, with 220 priests; I tried to enkindled the missionary spirit,and they were happy. They would come back to life. Some had a very hard life; the laïcisation had so penetrated the spirit of the populations that

Busing away all these children to lay schools. Rooting up, killing the Catholic apostolate. Gone were the subsidies for Catholic schools, the number of religious shrinking...With each passing year fewer Catholic schools Fewer Catholic hospitals for lack of religious personnel. Catholic schools sold, yes. The priests realized that the religious spirit was vanishing, in spite of their best efforts. A young priest who is still in the diocese, shedding tears. He told me: 'Monseigneur, you entrusted three parishes to me, three or four faithful, senior faithful on Sundays in every church of my parishes. When I arrive, a group eight or nine children for catechism, that's all! I am dying of boredom. I am dying(...). I am forced to take my meals in a tiny restaurant in my parish because no one is helping in the kitchen. I am completely isolated. I can't keep going like this! It is a veritable desolation, common in all the dioceses of France. Priests lose hope, because of this laicisation, everything, everything...

What must be done in these dioceses when a bishop arrives in a diocese like this? Open SCHOOLS! These priest should become teachers, to possess the impressionable youth. To establish Youth Movements. Gather the youth to give them the faith...that's right. And what will happen to these youth? In the diocese of Nantes and elsewhere - eventually there would be a teacher / priest in every village. Administrating priests! Teaching priests in the catholic schools. Imagine a priest would be a school. A priest, teaching in a primary school. Immediately vocations are born. If they busy themselves with children, vocations will eventually come. Later, they might try their vocations...vocations are revived. Seminaries start anew, that's it. And Catholic life takes root.

(...)When I was at Tulle, I learned very early on the importance of catholic schools. My successor, Msgr (Pearl?), (...)when he returned to the missions, (but has now resigned), the first thing he did was to close this catholic school! They are crazy! They have lost the faith. They don't believe in grace any more. They don't believe! 'Oh! well, they might as well go to a public school, we give them some catechism...Chaplains? Can't bother with that stuff.' They no longer beleive in the virtue of the priest. They no longer believe in the virtue of grace. They don't have the faith.

For them, all that is a human institution. (...) Another thing he did...There was a congregation which was the unique congregation that would send priests to the missions, a diocesan congregation just like we had and that was still in many villages; the first thing he did was to suppress this congregation and to unite it to the Sisters of the (...) the only congregation that we had.(...) So there you see the work of bishops! How can the Church be as before? How can the Church be as before? Impossible! How so? Because he was imbued... there were some lay folk. He definitely didn't want any schools that would appear to oppose the state run schools, to divide, to cause division in the population; to have peace, to have peace, 'why fight? Why? To initiate a combat? That combat is over. That combat is terminated'. So now the school is public, they will all public.'We can enter the public schools and do good as best we can. Voila!'

...They don't believe in the grace of Our Lord Jesus-Christ, and in the Holy Spirit.

There!...we have bishops like that. And the modernist cardinals at the Council. Inevitably, what happened happened. We had these bishops who were convinced, absolutely convinced of the necessity to liberalize everything. No combat, no combat; but the church is essentially combative. Our Lord led the combat, brought combat on earth. His cross brought a victory in the combat, in the first great combat against satan. And His apostles continued this combat and were all massacred, they were all killed because of their combat, because they proclaimed the divinity of our Lord, because they proclaimed the necessity to convert to Our Lord to be saved. It's clear!

...His cross brought a victory in the combat, in the first great combat against satan. And His apostles continued this combat and were all massacred, they were all killed because of their combat, because they proclaimed the divinity of our Lord, because they proclaimed the necessity to convert to Our Lord to be saved. It's clear!
TIME 34:05

Evidently the pagan religions they were addressing, the pagans practicing tenets of these religions, they were all massacred, they shed their blood - they didn't hesitate. If they would have had preach pacifism, pacifism, pacifism, as we do nowadays, surely, there couldn't have been martyrs. Not possible. We talk, we dialogue, your religion is as good as ours, and we adore the same god, then there are no difficulties. Do what you are doing, you will be saved like us. Ah! It's finished. there is no more combat. It is an open door for Satan with all the modern errors, the pagan errors. Finished. The work of the Church is terminated. The Church will disappear - she has no reason to exist.

She was a nuisance, but now, she doesn't want to be a nuisance. She doesn't want to annoy others. Our Lord was annoying, yes. In the very least, very annoying...He came in our midst with His cross. 'His cross is a nuisance; we don't want it, don't want it,' immediately when they witnessed Our Lord Jesus-Christ hanging upon the cross.... Finally, the Church herself, from the Pope, to the bishops, to the priests. Now the combat has evolved: peace, peace, peace, peace, dialogue. Dreadful, dreadful! It is an apostasy. They renounce what Our Lord had (...) the most intimate, since the Holy Virgin was a type of the most intimate, in Herself, that is, Her battle against Satan. The Holy Virgin was born of the enmity between God and Satan, She was born from this. She was born for this, to crush the head of Satan.

'AAAah! No! She won't crush the head of Satan, that's finished!' (...)The Virgin Mary is no longer, crucifix gone, no more Our Lord, no more combat...it is terminated. There is where we are at now my dear friends. We must understand the situation without which we will be unable to take the means to combat....otherwise we will be influenced by these compromises, compromise, compromises it's not worth it to be missionaries, not worth it to be Dominicans. The Dominicans are firstly combatants. St. Dominic was a combatant, and how! He didn't take up arms, the knights did that...with preaching; he never tired of proclaiming Our Lord of heaven and earth. they promptly persecuted him. Voila! This is the situation in which we find ourselves. I want to explain to you how this operation was realized in and by the Council. How, presently we live under the sway of the Council, and therefore under this operation that was realized to deny the engagement of the priest, and to prevent him from fighting - preventing him from being a preacher of the Reign of Our Lord. Unimaginable! These are facts.

There has been a total change in the attitude in the episcopacy. Those who really wanted to effect change in the Council, and to do it in the sense that they intended in the Council...to make a revolution by means of the Council. A revolution which would totally rupture the true spirit of the Church, and the true spirit of Our Lord; the true missionary and apostolic spirit. Complete!! Radical!! And to apply this, absolutely to everyone. Everything that is done by Rome today, and the (offices) of Rome ...Everything is done with this goal. Whatever they do, whatever relations they might have, all the concessions they could do, all is accomplished with this idea to submit to the spirit of the Council, in such a way that whatever was revolutionary in the Council be put in practice in a perfect manner. Just as they wanted it, just as they prepared it, as they organized it, they organized all such services at Rome. It is like this...it is a fact.

Follows then 'what must I do to restore the Reign of Our Lord?' to talk about the Reign, really, But they object immediately: 'You have resuscitated this war of religion - you have resuscitated this war of religion.' Well, it must be known. Where do these wars of religion come from? They come from opposition to Our Lord! They desire to abandon the missionary spirit, because the so-called " our mission", this mission as it was made prior to Vatican II created religious wars, instigated a combat, a religious combat. Well surely. It was always like that in the Church. That is why there have been martyrs throughout the history of the Church. They made themselves martyrs, they were martyrs. Because the opposed the lies of the world, the lies of Satan, of the horrors which lead to hell, and all these souls falling to hell, they wanted to save them. And wanting to save, they constantly opposed...they were massacred.

It a revolution, a revolution which was introduced in the Council -it is the spirit of revolution, but a revolution albeit with a religious character, in a certain way, because this is accomplished by men of the Church who want to break from the tradition of the Church. Try as they may to sugarcoat it, 'we continue tradition, we continue tradition, it is not true! They are not in continuity with tradition. So they presently want to inaugurate a new era, the Council has inaugurated a new era to which all must submit. Furthermore, this era has a name, a signifying name which we hear over and over again, is ecuмenism. The Council operated under the sign of ecuмenism, having necessarily for its foundation, both theoretical and theological, Religious Liberty. This is how it was done, with ecuмenism as the goal - to have relations, of a new kind, between all religions and the Church, and all the political ideologies, not only religions, but even political ideologies Another attitude of the Church: attitude of pacifism, an attitude of dialogue, an attitude of friendship, of understanding. It's over! Terminated. The ideal of the Church beginning with Our Lord, (...) completely annihilated, all finished, no longer the same.

Meanwhile we oppose the socialist, communist...The popes have always opposed this false ecuмenism. Just read the encyclical of Pius XI Mortalium Animos and note how the Pope is against this false ecuмenism. 'Oh! well. It is terminated, all what the popes have said, preceding Vatican II, it is over. Now we need a new style, a new style regarding the religions,' vis-a-vis the other religions, even if they are false, and of other ideologies. Not only the other religions mind you... Liberation Theology, relations with the communists, relations with the Freemasons - relations with THE sworn enemy of the Church, THE sworn enemy of Our Lord. Unreal!! Therefore ( Vat II says Smile

we cannot combat, we cannot combat.

Perhaps we can imagine what Pere Emmanuel thinks. Pere Emmanuel who lived a century...he sees this with a prophetic clarity. It's extraordinary. As soon as the ecclesiastical crisis dawned, as the Church found itself a century ago, because he felt the germs, from perceived it from the onset...it's marvelous. He made ecclesiastical ministry. (How did he die?) The priests had lost the Faith, and that is the most grave thing: the priests lose faith in their proper ministry, in their proper religion. It is the great ruin of the Church, not only a passing ruin, but a radical ruin, and from this the lack of religious vocations, the diminishing of the religious societies. It's normal, logical.

End of Part A, 2 of 2 Morning Conference

Footnote 1. Not sure if 'consecrate' is suitable or permitted.
Footnote 2. "For as We have said, they put their designs for her ruin into operation not from without but from within; hence, the danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church,..." Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Sept 8, 1907]]>

A partial transcript into English of the above French conference, taken from here:

Talk A. Morning Conference
Archbishop Lefebvre, Avrillé, Oct. 1989.

THE BEGINNING:

My dear friends, I wasn't expecting a public so numerous here, for this retreat, but I rejoice. I notice that your community is growing, so let's thank the Good God, and your confreres in the expansion of your dear Community. At the invitation, [he jokingly says]: not sure if we can call him 'prior'?, [chuckle from the audience] I accepted to give you some talks during this retreat of a few days. The fact that I started late and I will finish early...I should have been more generous but, for the reason that I am torn between demands here and there, and my schedule is very busy till the 19 November. Then after I will see - I will have time for prayer and reflection; also this will permit some writing, some means, trying to do good as best I can.

Therefore, during this retreat then, we must do the utmost good possible - confirm in your faith, confirm your vocation, confirm in your religious aspect - it is important. I want to discuss, in this instruction and perhaps the second one too, and expose the situation which we are in, because we are in this present history of the Church, we haven't chosen, but God has placed us in the here and now. We could have been living in the middle of the persecutions; or perhaps in an era when the Church was flourishing and at peace. For thirteen centuries, the Christian religion was really the Queen of this Christian Europe...we could have lived during those epochs. Oh! there were always many difficulties too, just as St. Dominic had some in his day, even if during his time it was considered an epoch of Christianity. Nevertheless, if we had trials in the course of the Church's history, combats, heresies, schisms, God has always raised up generous souls for those times, souls who make a constant effort to maintain, continue the Church that He founded, the Church which came forth from His Heart, wounded, truly, and so He will never abandon His Church.

We would not be wrong in saying these times in which we are living: 'the Church is in a grave situation'. Never the Church has experienced such trials that we presently have! I don't think so. Will it be the last one...the ultimate before the end of time? I don't know at all - I am not a prophet. In any case, it is certain that we must be conscious about this crisis in which the Church finds itself, the gravity of the crisis, so as to take the proper means to combat, since God has wanted to resuscitate groups, as yours, who have decided not to allow themselves to be invaded - neither the intelligence nor the will, nor the heart, by the current idealisms: of heresy, of apostasy, by sensualism, by rationalism, by Liberalism, of these modern errors - by a particular grace of the Good God...which God has chosen...to be possessors of the truth to continue the work of the Holy Catholic Church.

So, it is difficult to do a very succinct summary of this crisis, starting from the Council evidently, but in fact, the error goes back much further. It can be traced back to the origin of all the heresies, and especially, not only the machinations of men, but of the ' Order of Satan ' also, evidently. It is so clear that Satan labours without interruption, without respite, for the destruction of the Church. In certain epochs, sinister...he acted differently when dealing with persons filled of the grace of Our Lord, filled of the Holy Spirit, but it looks as if, in special moments, God seemingly allows him to captivate - he invades the world in such ways that he has become the absolute master. Happening in our epoch, isn't it so? It certainly looks like God have given satan liberty to act; we said this of Leo XIII. Leo XIII had a revelation pertaining to a crisis, a fight when satan would buffet the Church. It is said that God gave satan a hundred years, to act as he desired. We recognize that from Leo XIII's time till now, it is about one hundred years, and he has marvelously succeeded to settle his hand on the world, it is admirable!, on Christianity, which is even more grave, even on the Church, actually, on the men of the Church not the Church itself.

You know the history of the Church sufficiently...I don't want to repeat indefinitely. For sure, talk after talk this year, has sufficiently shown what was the French Revolution, the time of the Revolution, how this Revolution was conceived, how it was realized, and eventually how it began the destruction of the Church by the destruction of the Faith. I think that there is an act that manifests the Revolution and that is especially the "Goddess Reason", which was, if we may so speak "adored" in Notre Dame of Paris! An incredible scandal! which shows the spirit of the ones who made the Revolution: to adore Reason! to adore Man! the intention: to put man in the place of God. Place man instead of God - Put the rights of man instead of the rights of God. It is a radical revolt of man against God.

Just like the revolt of Satan against God, "Non serviam!", I will not serve!, well, this Revolution was nothing else than the application of this revolt of Satan...reason itself against the Faith! So, of course, they tried to massacre everything that supported the Faith in the past.

[TIME 9:34]
Beginning with the king; even if the king was not a perfect man, nevertheless he aided the Faith. The king was always (a constant king ?), a Catholic king. Already, even at the moment when the king was anointed, the voices of those who objected were raised, demanding: 'Let's put an end, do away with the consecration (Footnote 1), that this consecration didn't signify anything, useless, regrettable for the chief of state himself...it's no good to consecrate the king; what's the use?...a ceremony, a ceremony so religious; the king need not be consecrated; we shouldn't make of the king a sort of god'. Voices were raised to prevent [the leader Icseine? inaudible ]from performing the consecration.... [Icseine?] therefore decided on the contrary, (some wanted to make a scaled down ceremony at Notre Dame) and performed the consecration at Rheims and nowhere else. The King was consecrated, complete with all the ceremonies, with all the actions as the Church wanted. Because he felt he was the lieutenant of Our Lord Jesus-Christ on earth, to propagate the Faith, and to defend it; a real mission that he had to keep forever. Of course this was very upsetting for the spirit of those who wanted to do away with the Reign of Jesus-Christ, to abolish the reign of a Christian king; therefore the first step they took was to make the king disappear. Then it was the attempt to have all the servants of Our Lord disappear, as much as they could.

Then followed by the necessary step of replacing the Christian religion with new religion, a laïcité religion, a laicised religion - they replaced Christian feasts with profane feasts. There was a suffusion of this distinct spirit throughout all the nineteenth century; and the twentieth-century: laicism constantly making progress, progress, progress. At certain times, thanks to the pressure of faithful Catholics, of few men, such as Cardinal Pie stood up, who protested, struggled....faced with the resistance of the faithful population, the efforts of laïcisme diminished somewhat, but always the intention to return.

They succeeded at the beginning of this century, with the separation of Church and State and it must be noted that it was at that time when all the religious were chased from France. Not a trifling! It's enormous; when you consider the number of religious and nuns who found themselves in France at the beginning of this century. Actually, only four religious congregations were allowed: purely missionary congregations, like the Adem (?), the Holy Ghost Fathers were uniquely permitted only because they were missionary and the government worried that if these congregations would shrink, the influence of the Government in the Colonies would also diminish: so it was a purely political goal that allowed the four congregations...four congregations were maintained, but they were of the missionary kind. They realized that the missionaries wielded a great influence, what was taught, even politically, so they neither dared to oppress them, nor to chase them away.

All other Orders were chased away. A violent persecution, with an absolute and earnest will of laicising France more and more. And not only in France, but like this in all countries. Occupation of Cannes, occupation of Rome and so on...it was all of Europe, often aided by the Protestants, and by Freemasonary of course, succeeded, little by little, in laicising society in such a way that Our Lord has nothing to do, nothing! nothing to do with official society. I don't know if you can imagine... but, not so very long ago, one could see a crucifix in the tribunals - they had kept the Christ in the tribunals, there was a crucifix in the tribunals.

In the army, there were chaplains everywhere....they still possessed a certain Christian influence, in various official services of the state; but after the separation of Church and State it was over; it ended. Rampant tearing down of the Christ. This just kept progressing, even if there were a few respites, because of reactions, for a short while a few reactions, and then because of the efforts of Satan, and his henchmen, remarkably organized, and with Freemasonry which was constantly developing, they eventually conquered all of the Christian world - totally, so that actually Satan reigns by the intermediary of socialism, a political system which is diabolical, purely diabolical. With this program of laïcisation they infiltrated everywhere. Some efforts were renewed, with Franco, Salazar, de Valera in Ireland and others; a few presidents of Republics who were men still profoundly Christian and who upheld Christianity: all this blew up! finished, completely finished!

After this came the Council. Until then the Church resisted. The Church encouraged all those who held fast to Our Lord's social reign. At the very least, one could rely on Rome, priests, and bishops to defend the Social Reign of Our Lord Jesus-Christ. No one could have possibly imagined that a time would come, where those who were charged with defending the Reign of Our Lord would turn against Him. This!...This is the utmost pinnacle of the triumph of Satan! The masterstroke of Satan is the achievement of using the clerics, and using Rome, to destroy the Reign of Our Lord. This is what we have nowadays...

[Time 18:15]
What did they begin, these enemies of the Church, by the revolution?.. MARTYRDOM. Often there were martyrs, and the martyrdom of women, women martyred by the revolution...religious martyrdom. There are some who died miserably in France. They were martyrs of the revolution. Then the religious were persecuted and chased. Priests and religious were hunted down and martyred. But now, this is finished! They [clerics] are now at the service of the enemies of the Church. They shake hands with the enemies of the Church! to destroy the Reign of Our Lord Jesus-Christ.

How could this possibly be done? Well, by the invention of compromise. The Catholics began to compromise with the ideas of the Revolution. This work of Liberalism, under the pretext of Liberty, the liberty of man. Then we began to admit that, well..possibly, there might be some men who are against Our Lord, opposed to Our Lord, who were atheists. Opposed to Our Lord. Ah...well, they have the liberty, after all they have liberty...they have their consciences.

The real point is this: the day Catholics became this lax in principle and handed over the "carte blanche" to these enemies of the Church, it was already a considerable defeat for the world,. The combat has ceased against the enemies of the Church, against the enemies of Our Lord. The popes have denounced it throughout the XIX century, denounced this Liberalism, which transformed in Socialism, in Sillonism, in progressism, till it had penetrated to a greater extent. St Pius X had predicted, in his first encyclical, and said that no longer are there enemies outside the Church, but also enemies within. [Footnote 2] And where are those enemies? In the seminaries! In the seminaries...(inaudible) ...expressed tacitly that the enemy is in the seminaries. He implored the bishops: 'Chase all the modernist professors. All those who compromise with error: laïcisme, the anti-Christian errors...we must chase them, evidently, it 's easy to understand. How can professors who have no idea of the Social Reign of Our Lord Jesus-Christ, how can they teach priests to become militants, combatants for Our Lord?, for the Reign of Our Lord? How can they tell them when they say: 'I don't believe that anymore!' It is not possible.

And because they haven't listened to the (encyclical ? inaudible), they will keep those professors who diffuse these errors inside the seminaries. Now we have priests who are completely Modernists. They have acquired the modern liberty, acquired the modern errors. Very gently, they are convinced that societies have nothing to do with religion. Nothing at all. The political society has nothing to do with it. Not to be occupied with religion. All religions must be allowed, so consequently, without distinctions, thereby an eventual loss of the faith in Our Lord Jesus-Christ. If all religions are on an equal status in society then Our Lord, Boudah, and mo hahamed, all that is the same thing.

It is an apostasy, apostasy! They no longer hold to this saying, which is absolutely certain, constantly professed by the Church: Extra Ecclesia nulla salus, outside the Church no salvation. No salvation outside the Church. If there is no salvation outside the Church, Christian societies must strive to provide salvation for their citizens! Ah!...it is normal. Nowadays: Oh!...no no no. we don't have anything to do with that. As if the society wasn't created by God. God created it just like He created the family, He created civil society, He created the Church...the three societies which must work towards the good of souls and for the salvation of souls! It's clear...it's clear.

Eventually we witnessed (that truth ?) was abandoned in the seminaries; we longer teach in the seminaries of the holiness of Our Lord; that the christian religion is one of many religions: the missionary spirit has vanished. This spirit, this spirit destroyed in the priest. How is that possible?...to be a priest without being a missionary, is incomprehensible, incomprehensible, an enormous contradiction. Incredible isn't it?

What good could come from one of these priests who doesn't have faith in the oneness of the Catholic Church? The faith in the Church, sole means of salvation. What good could he do in your parish? (To demonstrate: at the battle front, how can a paraplegic fight?) So very slowly, very slowly, very slowly this spirit completely ruined the combat of the Church.

The invasion of this laïcité, everywhere, everywhere in the schools, by every powerful agency, by the media, by the cinema as soon as it was invented, the radio (...), all this has completed destroyed in the population this idea: that there is salvation only in Our Lord Jesus-Christ and in the Holy Church. Everything, everything completely laicised. Furthermore, the priests do not know a profound faith in their religion, it is evident that it was felt in their proper religion, it is evident, we now understand a sort of...destruction, the auto-destruction in the interior of the Church before even the Council, for sure.

The discouragement of the priests. I, I have seen it, I lived it. I experienced it as a bishop. I have seen it in my diocese, I saw these priests, particularly when I was at Puy(?). I felt it in the priests of France, a special interior discouragement. Some were happy, I can assure you, if we could have retaken having this conviction. In the missions, I hadn't quit the missions just because I was in France ,then in the small diocese of Tulle, it is a small diocese, it isn't a large diocese, with 220 priests; I tried to enkindled the missionary spirit,and they were happy. They would come back to life. Some had a very hard life; the laïcisation had so penetrated the spirit of the populations that

Busing away all these children to lay schools. Rooting up, killing the Catholic apostolate. Gone were the subsidies for Catholic schools, the number of religious shrinking...With each passing year fewer Catholic schools Fewer Catholic hospitals for lack of religious personnel. Catholic schools sold, yes. The priests realized that the religious spirit was vanishing, in spite of their best efforts. A young priest who is still in the diocese, shedding tears. He told me: 'Monseigneur, you entrusted three parishes to me, three or four faithful, senior faithful on Sundays in every church of my parishes. When I arrive, a group eight or nine children for catechism, that's all! I am dying of boredom. I am dying(...). I am forced to take my meals in a tiny restaurant in my parish because no one is helping in the kitchen. I am completely isolated. I can't keep going like this! It is a veritable desolation, common in all the dioceses of France. Priests lose hope, because of this laicisation, everything, everything...

What must be done in these dioceses when a bishop arrives in a diocese like this? Open SCHOOLS! These priest should become teachers, to possess the impressionable youth. To establish Youth Movements. Gather the youth to give them the faith...that's right. And what will happen to these youth? In the diocese of Nantes and elsewhere - eventually there would be a teacher / priest in every village. Administrating priests! Teaching priests in the catholic schools. Imagine a priest would be a school. A priest, teaching in a primary school. Immediately vocations are born. If they busy themselves with children, vocations will eventually come. Later, they might try their vocations...vocations are revived. Seminaries start anew, that's it. And Catholic life takes root.

(...)When I was at Tulle, I learned very early on the importance of catholic schools. My successor, Msgr (Pearl?), (...)when he returned to the missions, (but has now resigned), the first thing he did was to close this catholic school! They are crazy! They have lost the faith. They don't believe in grace any more. They don't believe! 'Oh! well, they might as well go to a public school, we give them some catechism...Chaplains? Can't bother with that stuff.' They no longer beleive in the virtue of the priest. They no longer believe in the virtue of grace. They don't have the faith.

For them, all that is a human institution. (...) Another thing he did...There was a congregation which was the unique congregation that would send priests to the missions, a diocesan congregation just like we had and that was still in many villages; the first thing he did was to suppress this congregation and to unite it to the Sisters of the (...) the only congregation that we had.(...) So there you see the work of bishops! How can the Church be as before? How can the Church be as before? Impossible! How so? Because he was imbued... there were some lay folk. He definitely didn't want any schools that would appear to oppose the state run schools, to divide, to cause division in the population; to have peace, to have peace, 'why fight? Why? To initiate a combat? That combat is over. That combat is terminated'. So now the school is public, they will all public.'We can enter the public schools and do good as best we can. Voila!'

...They don't believe in the grace of Our Lord Jesus-Christ, and in the Holy Spirit.

There!...we have bishops like that. And the modernist cardinals at the Council. Inevitably, what happened happened. We had these bishops who were convinced, absolutely convinced of the necessity to liberalize everything. No combat, no combat; but the church is essentially combative. Our Lord led the combat, brought combat on earth. His cross brought a victory in the combat, in the first great combat against satan. And His apostles continued this combat and were all massacred, they were all killed because of their combat, because they proclaimed the divinity of our Lord, because they proclaimed the necessity to convert to Our Lord to be saved. It's clear!

...His cross brought a victory in the combat, in the first great combat against satan. And His apostles continued this combat and were all massacred, they were all killed because of their combat, because they proclaimed the divinity of our Lord, because they proclaimed the necessity to convert to Our Lord to be saved. It's clear!
TIME 34:05

Evidently the pagan religions they were addressing, the pagans practicing tenets of these religions, they were all massacred, they shed their blood - they didn't hesitate. If they would have had preach pacifism, pacifism, pacifism, as we do nowadays, surely, there couldn't have been martyrs. Not possible. We talk, we dialogue, your religion is as good as ours, and we adore the same god, then there are no difficulties. Do what you are doing, you will be saved like us. Ah! It's finished. there is no more combat. It is an open door for Satan with all the modern errors, the pagan errors. Finished. The work of the Church is terminated. The Church will disappear - she has no reason to exist.

She was a nuisance, but now, she doesn't want to be a nuisance. She doesn't want to annoy others. Our Lord was annoying, yes. In the very least, very annoying...He came in our midst with His cross. 'His cross is a nuisance; we don't want it, don't want it,' immediately when they witnessed Our Lord Jesus-Christ hanging upon the cross.... Finally, the Church herself, from the Pope, to the bishops, to the priests. Now the combat has evolved: peace, peace, peace, peace, dialogue. Dreadful, dreadful! It is an apostasy. They renounce what Our Lord had (...) the most intimate, since the Holy Virgin was a type of the most intimate, in Herself, that is, Her battle against Satan. The Holy Virgin was born of the enmity between God and Satan, She was born from this. She was born for this, to crush the head of Satan.

'AAAah! No! She won't crush the head of Satan, that's finished!' (...)The Virgin Mary is no longer, crucifix gone, no more Our Lord, no more combat...it is terminated. There is where we are at now my dear friends. We must understand the situation without which we will be unable to take the means to combat....otherwise we will be influenced by these compromises, compromise, compromises it's not worth it to be missionaries, not worth it to be Dominicans. The Dominicans are firstly combatants. St. Dominic was a combatant, and how! He didn't take up arms, the knights did that...with preaching; he never tired of proclaiming Our Lord of heaven and earth. they promptly persecuted him. Voila! This is the situation in which we find ourselves. I want to explain to you how this operation was realized in and by the Council. How, presently we live under the sway of the Council, and therefore under this operation that was realized to deny the engagement of the priest, and to prevent him from fighting - preventing him from being a preacher of the Reign of Our Lord. Unimaginable! These are facts.

There has been a total change in the attitude in the episcopacy. Those who really wanted to effect change in the Council, and to do it in the sense that they intended in the Council...to make a revolution by means of the Council. A revolution which would totally rupture the true spirit of the Church, and the true spirit of Our Lord; the true missionary and apostolic spirit. Complete!! Radical!! And to apply this, absolutely to everyone. Everything that is done by Rome today, and the (offices) of Rome ...Everything is done with this goal. Whatever they do, whatever relations they might have, all the concessions they could do, all is accomplished with this idea to submit to the spirit of the Council, in such a way that whatever was revolutionary in the Council be put in practice in a perfect manner. Just as they wanted it, just as they prepared it, as they organized it, they organized all such services at Rome. It is like this...it is a fact.

Follows then 'what must I do to restore the Reign of Our Lord?' to talk about the Reign, really, But they object immediately: 'You have resuscitated this war of religion - you have resuscitated this war of religion.' Well, it must be known. Where do these wars of religion come from? They come from opposition to Our Lord! They desire to abandon the missionary spirit, because the so-called " our mission", this mission as it was made prior to Vatican II created religious wars, instigated a combat, a religious combat. Well surely. It was always like that in the Church. That is why there have been martyrs throughout the history of the Church. They made themselves martyrs, they were martyrs. Because the opposed the lies of the world, the lies of Satan, of the horrors which lead to hell, and all these souls falling to hell, they wanted to save them. And wanting to save, they constantly opposed...they were massacred.

It a revolution, a revolution which was introduced in the Council -it is the spirit of revolution, but a revolution albeit with a religious character, in a certain way, because this is accomplished by men of the Church who want to break from the tradition of the Church. Try as they may to sugarcoat it, 'we continue tradition, we continue tradition, it is not true! They are not in continuity with tradition. So they presently want to inaugurate a new era, the Council has inaugurated a new era to which all must submit. Furthermore, this era has a name, a signifying name which we hear over and over again, is ecuмenism. The Council operated under the sign of ecuмenism, having necessarily for its foundation, both theoretical and theological, Religious Liberty. This is how it was done, with ecuмenism as the goal - to have relations, of a new kind, between all religions and the Church, and all the political ideologies, not only religions, but even political ideologies Another attitude of the Church: attitude of pacifism, an attitude of dialogue, an attitude of friendship, of understanding. It's over! Terminated. The ideal of the Church beginning with Our Lord, (...) completely annihilated, all finished, no longer the same.

Meanwhile we oppose the socialist, communist...The popes have always opposed this false ecuмenism. Just read the encyclical of Pius XI Mortalium Animos and note how the Pope is against this false ecuмenism. 'Oh! well. It is terminated, all what the popes have said, preceding Vatican II, it is over. Now we need a new style, a new style regarding the religions,' vis-a-vis the other religions, even if they are false, and of other ideologies. Not only the other religions mind you... Liberation Theology, relations with the communists, relations with the Freemasons - relations with THE sworn enemy of the Church, THE sworn enemy of Our Lord. Unreal!! Therefore ( Vat II says Smile

we cannot combat, we cannot combat.

Perhaps we can imagine what Pere Emmanuel thinks. Pere Emmanuel who lived a century...he sees this with a prophetic clarity. It's extraordinary. As soon as the ecclesiastical crisis dawned, as the Church found itself a century ago, because he felt the germs, from perceived it from the onset...it's marvelous. He made ecclesiastical ministry. (How did he die?) The priests had lost the Faith, and that is the most grave thing: the priests lose faith in their proper ministry, in their proper religion. It is the great ruin of the Church, not only a passing ruin, but a radical ruin, and from this the lack of religious vocations, the diminishing of the religious societies. It's normal, logical.

End of Part A, 2 of 2 Morning Conference

Footnote 1. Not sure if 'consecrate' is suitable or permitted.
Footnote 2. "For as We have said, they put their designs for her ruin into operation not from without but from within; hence, the danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church,..." Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Sept 8, 1907]]> <![CDATA[Archbishop Lefebvre: 1987 Ordination Sermon 'Bishops to Save the Church']]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6248 Thu, 27 Jun 2024 11:30:09 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6248 'Bishops to Save the Church'
Archbishop Lefebvre's Sermon at the Priestly ordinations in Ecône, June 29, 1987
Taken from here.

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

Dear Brethren,

Let us give thanks to God who allows us once more to meet together again in Ecône to take part in the magnificent ceremony of priestly ordinations, ceremony which is the reason for our seminaries' existence and their crowning glory. Seminaries without ordinations would no longer be seminaries of the Church. nor Catholic seminaries. For this reason, having the joy of imposing hands on the new priests, we give thanks to God for letting our seminaries continue to live and even to expand, since Ecône has had to split in two to enable a larger number of young men desiring the true Catholic priesthood, to find at Ecône and Flavigny the training and graces needed for them to become true and holy priests.

MASS AND THE PRIEST

Dear Ordinands, I shall begin by addressing to you a few words of edification and encouragement. You are going to be ordained within the celebration of the Catholic Mass, not a neo-protestant Mass, and this Catholic Mass has been, is now, and will always be the great programme of the priestly life, the great programme of Christian life. To change this Mass is to change the ideal of the priest and Christian, the Catholic ideal. For above all else, Holy Mass is the Cross of Jesus, the continuation of the Cross of Jesus. The veil of the Temple was rent because Jesus died on the Cross, the Old Testament was giving way to the New - was everything changed? Yes and no. Undoubtedly the whole ritual of the old law and a certain concept of God's law was changed, but the essence of the Old Testament law was being transformed into a living vision of the law of love.

MASS AND THE LAW OF LOVE

What do the Ten Commandments say, other than to love God and to love one's neighbour? Our Lord Jesus Christ himself has told us so. And this law of love is henceforth inscribed not only on stone tablets, it is inscribed in Our Lord Jesus Christ's sacrifice, He is the law of love and He shows it upon His Cross. What more beautiful manifestation of the law of love and charity could Our Lord give us than to die upon the Cross for the glory of His Father and the salvation of our souls? Hence it is the law of love which Jesus preaches to us upon the Cross, and which He preaches to us every day at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass - the same law of love which was deposited in your hearts. my dear friends, and in your souls, through the grace of Baptism.

Indeed the grace of Baptism transformed you and united you deeply to Our Lord Jesus Christ for the realisation of His law of love. His law of charity. And the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass celebrated - as I hope God will give you the grace to do - every day of your life, will maintain that baptismal grace. For just as your god-fathers and god-mothers said on your behalf at your baptism that they were cleaving to Our Lord Jesus Christ and shunning all the temptations of this world. so you too, every day you celebrate Mass, will say: "My God, O Jesus. I cleave to you forever, I wish to be your priest, one who preaches the law of love by example and by word. Keep me free of this world and all its temptations, shield me from all influences of this world which are in the service of Satan and of disobedience to God."

MASS, THE PROGRAMME OF THE PRIEST

In this way your souls will take strength in the presence of the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of His Body and Blood which you will have in front of you on the altar, and which you yourselves will draw down from heaven by pronouncing the words of consecration. What a sublime mystery! God obeying men so as to continue offering His sacrifice! Here will be the programme of your priestly life: to penetrate the souls coming to you, to penetrate the souls attending your Holy Sacrifice of Mass, with the sentiments of love of God and love of neighbour, even to the sacrifice of self - and God knows if Our Lord Jesus Christ gives us the example of that! -even to the sacrifice of self, even to death if need be, even to the shedding of one's blood, in order to remain united to Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let that be your programme! And that is why you must cleave in life, in death, to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that you are going to celebrate with me today. Do not let yourselves be seduced by the attractions and appeal of the world into transforming the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass into a purely human assembly. And it is my dearest wish that you remain in these sentiments all the days of your life, all the days of your priestly life, and that you be apostles like those who have gone before you, wherever they have been sent, like the dear priests surrounding us here today who are happy to impose hands on you -priests of Our Lord Jesus Christ, priests of crucified love, priests of Jesus crucified, and not priests of the world, nor priests for the world!

TWO SIGNS OF PROVIDENCE

My dear brethren, allow me also to make use of this occasion to bring you up-to-date with the situation in which we find ourselves today, as indeed is our custom on the occasion of this ceremony of priestly ordinations. Well, I must tell you, I cannot pass it over in silence and I cannot hide it: -this year has been serious, very serious, for the Catholic Church, for us Catholics, for Catholic priests. You are aware that in various writings appearing here and there I have had occasion to say that, yes, I was waiting for signs from Providence to carry out acts seeming to me necessary for the continuation of the Catholic Church. Well, I have to admit that I am convinced that the signs have come. What are they? There are two of them: -the ecumenical meeting held in Assisi last October, and the reply Rome has made to the objections we had sent them concerning religious liberty.

And I state further that this reply made to us after Assisi -since Assisi took place on October 27, whereas the reply reached us this January - I state that Rome's reply to the objections we made to the errors of Vatican II on religious liberty, is graver than Assisi. Assisi is a historical fact, an action; the reply to our objections on religious liberty is a stand taken on principles, a statement of principles, and hence graver! It is one thing to commit a grave and scandalous action; it is quite another to state false and erroneous principles which work out in practice in utterly disastrous conclusions!

JESUS UNCROWNED

Hence it is providential that by a particular set of circumstances we wrote the book that appeared just a few days ago, entitled: "They Uncrowned Him." Who? Who did the uncrowning and who was uncrowned? Who was uncrowned? Our Lord Jesus Christ. Who uncrowned him? The authorities in Rome today. And the uncrowning shows in a very clear way in the Assisi ceremony. Jesus Christ is uncrowned. He is no longer King. Universal King, the King we proclaim in our liturgy from Christmas through to His Ascension. All the Liturgical feasts proclaim the kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ. From end to end of the Liturgical year we chant:

"King of Kings, Lord of Lords," Our Lord Jesus Christ. But now instead of extolling the kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, here they are instituting a pantheon of all religions. And just as it was the Roman authorities, or pagan emperors, who built the pagan Pantheon then, so too the pagan pantheon of today, the meeting-place of all religions, is being constructed by the church authorities of Rome! What an immense scandal for souls, for Catholics who already question the universal kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ!

LIBERALISM

This is exactly what is meant by liberalism. Liberalism means establishing the freedom of man from God; hence the man who believes in, hopes in, and professes any religion whatsoever is just as worthy of respect as the man who says he professes the true religion. According to Liberalism, the State, or civil society. is no longer capable of knowing which is the true religion. That much is stated in the document given us by Rome: the State is incompetent in matters of religion, and so cannot decide which is the true or false religion, and by that very fact is bound to allow within the "autonomous social area -as they call it, autonomous social area meaning practically the entire life of the State - is bound to allow all religious errors to spread, whatever they be, because man is free to have his own religion. Well, we say no, no, no!

And Holy Mass proves it to us: there is one law, a law of love, and Our Lord Jesus Christ proclaims to us on the Cross this law of love. He preaches it to us. He tells us. "You must obey the law of love. Whosoever does not obey the law of love is not worthy of eternal life." Hence it is a binding law. We are not free. Our holy religion is not a matter of free choice, it is the only one, the one which Our Lord Jesus Christ proclaimed from His Cross.

And liberalism has become the idol of modern times, an idol now adored in most countries of the world, even the Catholic countries -this liberty of man from God, which defies God, which seeks to make its own religion, liberalism, with its own commandments, the rights of man, with its secular states, secular education, empty of God, godless - there is liberalism for you.

DARKNESS IN ROME

And how is it possible for the authorities in Rome to be encouraging liberalism and professing such liberalism in the Decree on Religious Liberty? That is what is so very serious, as I see it. Rome is in darkness, in the darkness of error. There is no denying it. Impossible to deny it. How can we as Catholics, and all the more as priests, bear to look on the spectacle placed before our eyes in Assisi, in St. Peter's Church given over for the practice of their pagan worship to the Buddhists who put their idol on the tabernacle of Jesus Christ, King of Kings, and performed their pagan ceremony in front of this tabernacle, empty no doubt, but capped with a Buddha, their idol. Is it conceivable? In a Catholic Church, a church of Our Lord Jesus Christ? These are facts which speak by themselves. We cannot conceive of an error more grave.

How is it possible? Let us leave the good Lord to answer. He guides all things, He is the master of events, Our Lord Jesus Christ, He knows what will come of this triumph of error over Rome and over the highest authorities, from the Pope to the cardinals and bishops of the entire world following these ideas; for indeed the bishops of the whole world are following the false ideas of the Council with their ecumenism and liberalism. God alone knows where it is all going to end.

WAR WITH SATAN

For our part, however, if we wish to remain Catholic and to continue the Church, we have the grave and imprescriptible duty binding us firstly to increase the number of priests, priests believing in Our Lord Jesus Christ, in His Kingship, in His kingship over society, according to the Church's doctrine. That is why I am happy that the book on liberalism has appeared today, my dear friends, so that you may nourish your minds on it and grasp in depth what our combat is all about. It is not a human combat! We are at grips with Satan! It is a combat requiring all the supernatural strength we need to fight against the adversary who means to destroy and uproot the Church, who means to destroy everything Our Lord Jesus Christ did. He meant to destroy Our Lord from the moment He was born, and now He means to continue destroying His Mystical Body, to destroy the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to destroy all His institutions whatsoever.

So we must be aware of this dramatic and apocalyptic combat through which we are living, and not play it down, because the moment we play it down, we no longer wish to give battle, we become weaklings and we dare no longer proclaim the Truth; we no longer dare to proclaim the social kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ because our godless and atheistic world does not want to hear of it. To say that Our Lord Jesus Christ should reign over societies is folly as far as the world is concerned. "You are backward-looking, out-of-date fossils, stuck fast in the Middle Ages ", we hear, "that doctrine is over and done with, it belongs to the past! Let's hear no more of Our Lord Jesus Christ reigning over societies!"

And so we might tend to be afraid of this public opinion opposing us because we stand for the kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us in any case not be surprised to find that any demonstrations of ours in favour of the Social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ come up against an army directed by Satan to destroy us, to hinder and nullify any influence we might have.

THE SOCIETY'S CONTINUATION

Hence we are happy today to be carrying out these priestly ordinations, and in all sincerity we think it is not possible to abandon the Society of St. Pius X placed in our hands by the good Lord. For it is not I that founded it, it is truly Our Lord who founded it, in unbelievable circumstances. And now, after some 17 years of existence, our Society has spread throughout the world, seconded by other initiatives which - thanks be to God - have arisen with us and around us: all the religious and nuns with us today, who have stood up like ourselves, to proclaim that Our Lord Jesus Christ is King, and not to desert Him. Are we going to desert Him? Are we going to let Him be crucified a second time? Are we going to quit the Church presently undergoing her Passion, and not come to her aid ? And what will become of souls if nobody dares any longer proclaim the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ? And what will become of souls if we no longer provide them with the true grace they need? All this is cryingly obvious, and so let us be convinced of it.

MEANS OF CONTINUATION

And that is the reason why it is likely that I shall give myself some successors to be able to continue the work of our Society. Because Rome is in darkness, because Rome at present can no longer hear the voice of truth -Rome no longer hears the voice of truth. Then what are we to do? What answer has there been to our appeals? For 20 years now I have been going to Rome. I have been writing, I have been speaking, I have been sending documents to say to them: -"Follow Tradition, come back to Tradition, otherwise the Church will be ruined. You, the appointed successors of those who built the Church, you must continue to build and not to demolish!" They are deaf, stone deaf to our appeals.

And the last document we have just received from them proves it amply. They are shutting themselves up in their errors, they are shutting themselves up in darkness, and they are quite simply going to lead souls into apostasy, the ruination of the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the ruination of the Catholic and Christian Faith. Well, if that is what God asks of us, we shall not hesitate to provide ourselves with auxiliaries to continue the work of the Society, for we cannot believe that God wishes this work to be destroyed, to come to an end, to continue no further, for souls to be abandoned and for the Church by that very fact to have no more pastors.

ABNORMAL TIMES

We are living in a quite unique age, we must realize that. The situation is not normal, least of all in Rome. Read the Italian journal "Si, si, no, no", edited by the dear Sisters who are here today, who have come to see Ecône and to get some encouragement for the work they are doing. The journal "Si, si, no, no" gives us precise information on the situation in Rome, a perfectly incredible situation, unparallelled in all history! Never has there been anything like it!

Never! -The Pope making himself, as I was saying a little while ago, into a sort of guardian of the Pantheon of all religions, making himself the Pontiff of Liberalism! Tell me, tell me, pray - has such a situation ever existed in the Church? What are we to do, faced with such a reality? Weep, no doubt. Oh. weep, we do! Our heart is grieved, our heart is crushed by this situation! We would give our life, we would shed our blood to turn it around -but there it is.

CONSECRATIONS: GOD'S WILL

The situation is such, the work placed in our hands by the good Lord is such, that faced with this darkness in Rome, faced with the Roman authorities' pertinacity in error, faced with this refusal to return to Truth or Tradition on the part of those who occupy the seats of authority in Rome, faced with all these things, it seems to us that the good Lord is asking for the Church to continue. This is why it is likely that before I give account of my life to the good Lord, I shall have to consecrate some bishops.

APPEAL TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN

My dear friends, my dear brethren, let us pray. Let us pray with all our hearts, let us pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary! We shall go to Fatima on August 22nd to ask Our Lady of Fatima to help us. They would not reveal her Third Secret, they buried the message of the Virgin Mary. No doubt this message was meant to prevent what is happening today. Had her message been made known, most likely we would not be where we are today, the situation in Rome, would not be what it is today. The Pope refused to make public the Virgin Mary's message: well, the punishments foretold by Mary are coming: the apostasy announced in Scripture is on its way; the coming of the Anti-Christ draws near, as is perfectly obvious. So, faced with this quite exceptional situation, we too must take exceptional means.

There you have it, my dear brethren, my dear friends, during this Mass we shall pray, especially to the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, guardians of the Church: may they enlighten us! May they help us! May they obtain for us the Gift of Strength and the Gift of Wisdom to continue their work, to carry on the work of Peter and Paul and all their successors. Let us ask for this from the Blessed Virgin Mary above all, and let us consecrate our persons, our families, our cities to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.]]> 'Bishops to Save the Church'
Archbishop Lefebvre's Sermon at the Priestly ordinations in Ecône, June 29, 1987
Taken from here.

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

Dear Brethren,

Let us give thanks to God who allows us once more to meet together again in Ecône to take part in the magnificent ceremony of priestly ordinations, ceremony which is the reason for our seminaries' existence and their crowning glory. Seminaries without ordinations would no longer be seminaries of the Church. nor Catholic seminaries. For this reason, having the joy of imposing hands on the new priests, we give thanks to God for letting our seminaries continue to live and even to expand, since Ecône has had to split in two to enable a larger number of young men desiring the true Catholic priesthood, to find at Ecône and Flavigny the training and graces needed for them to become true and holy priests.

MASS AND THE PRIEST

Dear Ordinands, I shall begin by addressing to you a few words of edification and encouragement. You are going to be ordained within the celebration of the Catholic Mass, not a neo-protestant Mass, and this Catholic Mass has been, is now, and will always be the great programme of the priestly life, the great programme of Christian life. To change this Mass is to change the ideal of the priest and Christian, the Catholic ideal. For above all else, Holy Mass is the Cross of Jesus, the continuation of the Cross of Jesus. The veil of the Temple was rent because Jesus died on the Cross, the Old Testament was giving way to the New - was everything changed? Yes and no. Undoubtedly the whole ritual of the old law and a certain concept of God's law was changed, but the essence of the Old Testament law was being transformed into a living vision of the law of love.

MASS AND THE LAW OF LOVE

What do the Ten Commandments say, other than to love God and to love one's neighbour? Our Lord Jesus Christ himself has told us so. And this law of love is henceforth inscribed not only on stone tablets, it is inscribed in Our Lord Jesus Christ's sacrifice, He is the law of love and He shows it upon His Cross. What more beautiful manifestation of the law of love and charity could Our Lord give us than to die upon the Cross for the glory of His Father and the salvation of our souls? Hence it is the law of love which Jesus preaches to us upon the Cross, and which He preaches to us every day at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass - the same law of love which was deposited in your hearts. my dear friends, and in your souls, through the grace of Baptism.

Indeed the grace of Baptism transformed you and united you deeply to Our Lord Jesus Christ for the realisation of His law of love. His law of charity. And the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass celebrated - as I hope God will give you the grace to do - every day of your life, will maintain that baptismal grace. For just as your god-fathers and god-mothers said on your behalf at your baptism that they were cleaving to Our Lord Jesus Christ and shunning all the temptations of this world. so you too, every day you celebrate Mass, will say: "My God, O Jesus. I cleave to you forever, I wish to be your priest, one who preaches the law of love by example and by word. Keep me free of this world and all its temptations, shield me from all influences of this world which are in the service of Satan and of disobedience to God."

MASS, THE PROGRAMME OF THE PRIEST

In this way your souls will take strength in the presence of the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of His Body and Blood which you will have in front of you on the altar, and which you yourselves will draw down from heaven by pronouncing the words of consecration. What a sublime mystery! God obeying men so as to continue offering His sacrifice! Here will be the programme of your priestly life: to penetrate the souls coming to you, to penetrate the souls attending your Holy Sacrifice of Mass, with the sentiments of love of God and love of neighbour, even to the sacrifice of self - and God knows if Our Lord Jesus Christ gives us the example of that! -even to the sacrifice of self, even to death if need be, even to the shedding of one's blood, in order to remain united to Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let that be your programme! And that is why you must cleave in life, in death, to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that you are going to celebrate with me today. Do not let yourselves be seduced by the attractions and appeal of the world into transforming the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass into a purely human assembly. And it is my dearest wish that you remain in these sentiments all the days of your life, all the days of your priestly life, and that you be apostles like those who have gone before you, wherever they have been sent, like the dear priests surrounding us here today who are happy to impose hands on you -priests of Our Lord Jesus Christ, priests of crucified love, priests of Jesus crucified, and not priests of the world, nor priests for the world!

TWO SIGNS OF PROVIDENCE

My dear brethren, allow me also to make use of this occasion to bring you up-to-date with the situation in which we find ourselves today, as indeed is our custom on the occasion of this ceremony of priestly ordinations. Well, I must tell you, I cannot pass it over in silence and I cannot hide it: -this year has been serious, very serious, for the Catholic Church, for us Catholics, for Catholic priests. You are aware that in various writings appearing here and there I have had occasion to say that, yes, I was waiting for signs from Providence to carry out acts seeming to me necessary for the continuation of the Catholic Church. Well, I have to admit that I am convinced that the signs have come. What are they? There are two of them: -the ecumenical meeting held in Assisi last October, and the reply Rome has made to the objections we had sent them concerning religious liberty.

And I state further that this reply made to us after Assisi -since Assisi took place on October 27, whereas the reply reached us this January - I state that Rome's reply to the objections we made to the errors of Vatican II on religious liberty, is graver than Assisi. Assisi is a historical fact, an action; the reply to our objections on religious liberty is a stand taken on principles, a statement of principles, and hence graver! It is one thing to commit a grave and scandalous action; it is quite another to state false and erroneous principles which work out in practice in utterly disastrous conclusions!

JESUS UNCROWNED

Hence it is providential that by a particular set of circumstances we wrote the book that appeared just a few days ago, entitled: "They Uncrowned Him." Who? Who did the uncrowning and who was uncrowned? Who was uncrowned? Our Lord Jesus Christ. Who uncrowned him? The authorities in Rome today. And the uncrowning shows in a very clear way in the Assisi ceremony. Jesus Christ is uncrowned. He is no longer King. Universal King, the King we proclaim in our liturgy from Christmas through to His Ascension. All the Liturgical feasts proclaim the kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ. From end to end of the Liturgical year we chant:

"King of Kings, Lord of Lords," Our Lord Jesus Christ. But now instead of extolling the kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, here they are instituting a pantheon of all religions. And just as it was the Roman authorities, or pagan emperors, who built the pagan Pantheon then, so too the pagan pantheon of today, the meeting-place of all religions, is being constructed by the church authorities of Rome! What an immense scandal for souls, for Catholics who already question the universal kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ!

LIBERALISM

This is exactly what is meant by liberalism. Liberalism means establishing the freedom of man from God; hence the man who believes in, hopes in, and professes any religion whatsoever is just as worthy of respect as the man who says he professes the true religion. According to Liberalism, the State, or civil society. is no longer capable of knowing which is the true religion. That much is stated in the document given us by Rome: the State is incompetent in matters of religion, and so cannot decide which is the true or false religion, and by that very fact is bound to allow within the "autonomous social area -as they call it, autonomous social area meaning practically the entire life of the State - is bound to allow all religious errors to spread, whatever they be, because man is free to have his own religion. Well, we say no, no, no!

And Holy Mass proves it to us: there is one law, a law of love, and Our Lord Jesus Christ proclaims to us on the Cross this law of love. He preaches it to us. He tells us. "You must obey the law of love. Whosoever does not obey the law of love is not worthy of eternal life." Hence it is a binding law. We are not free. Our holy religion is not a matter of free choice, it is the only one, the one which Our Lord Jesus Christ proclaimed from His Cross.

And liberalism has become the idol of modern times, an idol now adored in most countries of the world, even the Catholic countries -this liberty of man from God, which defies God, which seeks to make its own religion, liberalism, with its own commandments, the rights of man, with its secular states, secular education, empty of God, godless - there is liberalism for you.

DARKNESS IN ROME

And how is it possible for the authorities in Rome to be encouraging liberalism and professing such liberalism in the Decree on Religious Liberty? That is what is so very serious, as I see it. Rome is in darkness, in the darkness of error. There is no denying it. Impossible to deny it. How can we as Catholics, and all the more as priests, bear to look on the spectacle placed before our eyes in Assisi, in St. Peter's Church given over for the practice of their pagan worship to the Buddhists who put their idol on the tabernacle of Jesus Christ, King of Kings, and performed their pagan ceremony in front of this tabernacle, empty no doubt, but capped with a Buddha, their idol. Is it conceivable? In a Catholic Church, a church of Our Lord Jesus Christ? These are facts which speak by themselves. We cannot conceive of an error more grave.

How is it possible? Let us leave the good Lord to answer. He guides all things, He is the master of events, Our Lord Jesus Christ, He knows what will come of this triumph of error over Rome and over the highest authorities, from the Pope to the cardinals and bishops of the entire world following these ideas; for indeed the bishops of the whole world are following the false ideas of the Council with their ecumenism and liberalism. God alone knows where it is all going to end.

WAR WITH SATAN

For our part, however, if we wish to remain Catholic and to continue the Church, we have the grave and imprescriptible duty binding us firstly to increase the number of priests, priests believing in Our Lord Jesus Christ, in His Kingship, in His kingship over society, according to the Church's doctrine. That is why I am happy that the book on liberalism has appeared today, my dear friends, so that you may nourish your minds on it and grasp in depth what our combat is all about. It is not a human combat! We are at grips with Satan! It is a combat requiring all the supernatural strength we need to fight against the adversary who means to destroy and uproot the Church, who means to destroy everything Our Lord Jesus Christ did. He meant to destroy Our Lord from the moment He was born, and now He means to continue destroying His Mystical Body, to destroy the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to destroy all His institutions whatsoever.

So we must be aware of this dramatic and apocalyptic combat through which we are living, and not play it down, because the moment we play it down, we no longer wish to give battle, we become weaklings and we dare no longer proclaim the Truth; we no longer dare to proclaim the social kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ because our godless and atheistic world does not want to hear of it. To say that Our Lord Jesus Christ should reign over societies is folly as far as the world is concerned. "You are backward-looking, out-of-date fossils, stuck fast in the Middle Ages ", we hear, "that doctrine is over and done with, it belongs to the past! Let's hear no more of Our Lord Jesus Christ reigning over societies!"

And so we might tend to be afraid of this public opinion opposing us because we stand for the kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us in any case not be surprised to find that any demonstrations of ours in favour of the Social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ come up against an army directed by Satan to destroy us, to hinder and nullify any influence we might have.

THE SOCIETY'S CONTINUATION

Hence we are happy today to be carrying out these priestly ordinations, and in all sincerity we think it is not possible to abandon the Society of St. Pius X placed in our hands by the good Lord. For it is not I that founded it, it is truly Our Lord who founded it, in unbelievable circumstances. And now, after some 17 years of existence, our Society has spread throughout the world, seconded by other initiatives which - thanks be to God - have arisen with us and around us: all the religious and nuns with us today, who have stood up like ourselves, to proclaim that Our Lord Jesus Christ is King, and not to desert Him. Are we going to desert Him? Are we going to let Him be crucified a second time? Are we going to quit the Church presently undergoing her Passion, and not come to her aid ? And what will become of souls if nobody dares any longer proclaim the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ? And what will become of souls if we no longer provide them with the true grace they need? All this is cryingly obvious, and so let us be convinced of it.

MEANS OF CONTINUATION

And that is the reason why it is likely that I shall give myself some successors to be able to continue the work of our Society. Because Rome is in darkness, because Rome at present can no longer hear the voice of truth -Rome no longer hears the voice of truth. Then what are we to do? What answer has there been to our appeals? For 20 years now I have been going to Rome. I have been writing, I have been speaking, I have been sending documents to say to them: -"Follow Tradition, come back to Tradition, otherwise the Church will be ruined. You, the appointed successors of those who built the Church, you must continue to build and not to demolish!" They are deaf, stone deaf to our appeals.

And the last document we have just received from them proves it amply. They are shutting themselves up in their errors, they are shutting themselves up in darkness, and they are quite simply going to lead souls into apostasy, the ruination of the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the ruination of the Catholic and Christian Faith. Well, if that is what God asks of us, we shall not hesitate to provide ourselves with auxiliaries to continue the work of the Society, for we cannot believe that God wishes this work to be destroyed, to come to an end, to continue no further, for souls to be abandoned and for the Church by that very fact to have no more pastors.

ABNORMAL TIMES

We are living in a quite unique age, we must realize that. The situation is not normal, least of all in Rome. Read the Italian journal "Si, si, no, no", edited by the dear Sisters who are here today, who have come to see Ecône and to get some encouragement for the work they are doing. The journal "Si, si, no, no" gives us precise information on the situation in Rome, a perfectly incredible situation, unparallelled in all history! Never has there been anything like it!

Never! -The Pope making himself, as I was saying a little while ago, into a sort of guardian of the Pantheon of all religions, making himself the Pontiff of Liberalism! Tell me, tell me, pray - has such a situation ever existed in the Church? What are we to do, faced with such a reality? Weep, no doubt. Oh. weep, we do! Our heart is grieved, our heart is crushed by this situation! We would give our life, we would shed our blood to turn it around -but there it is.

CONSECRATIONS: GOD'S WILL

The situation is such, the work placed in our hands by the good Lord is such, that faced with this darkness in Rome, faced with the Roman authorities' pertinacity in error, faced with this refusal to return to Truth or Tradition on the part of those who occupy the seats of authority in Rome, faced with all these things, it seems to us that the good Lord is asking for the Church to continue. This is why it is likely that before I give account of my life to the good Lord, I shall have to consecrate some bishops.

APPEAL TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN

My dear friends, my dear brethren, let us pray. Let us pray with all our hearts, let us pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary! We shall go to Fatima on August 22nd to ask Our Lady of Fatima to help us. They would not reveal her Third Secret, they buried the message of the Virgin Mary. No doubt this message was meant to prevent what is happening today. Had her message been made known, most likely we would not be where we are today, the situation in Rome, would not be what it is today. The Pope refused to make public the Virgin Mary's message: well, the punishments foretold by Mary are coming: the apostasy announced in Scripture is on its way; the coming of the Anti-Christ draws near, as is perfectly obvious. So, faced with this quite exceptional situation, we too must take exceptional means.

There you have it, my dear brethren, my dear friends, during this Mass we shall pray, especially to the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, guardians of the Church: may they enlighten us! May they help us! May they obtain for us the Gift of Strength and the Gift of Wisdom to continue their work, to carry on the work of Peter and Paul and all their successors. Let us ask for this from the Blessed Virgin Mary above all, and let us consecrate our persons, our families, our cities to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.]]> <![CDATA[Archbishop Lefebvre 1979: To Be the Leaven of the Catholic Church]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=5014 Sat, 25 Mar 2023 11:05:37 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=5014 The Angelus - September 1979

The Sermon of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, on the Feast of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin, 15 August 1979

Saint Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, during the Angelus Pilgrimage

My dear brethren,

When I came to Saint Mary's College for the first time two years ago, I was amazed and stupefied by the magnificence of the chapel, of the chapel dedicated to the Immaculate Conception. And when those who were showing me around this magnificent chapel told me that it was a shrine venerated throughout America, and particularly in this area, I thought at once that, if God permitted us to have this property, and especially this chapel, we would make of it a center of pilgrimage, a center of devotion to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary for all America. People would come from the North, from the South, from the East, from the West, to this center which lies in the geographical center of America, so as to manifest their devotion to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, and to discover at her feet the line of conduct to follow in this terrible period that the Church is passing through today.

And already I was promising Father Bolduc that I would come for the feast of August 15, to meet all those who would desire to come pray at the feet of the Most Blessed Virgin, and to encourage them to preserve the Catholic faith in union with the Virgin Mary. But by the decision of Providence, the chapel caught fire. This was a great trial for us. It was indeed a disaster. Our hearts were in anguish. But since God had decided thus, we still thought that we should maintain this date for the pilgrimage, and that, since it had become necessary, we would reconstruct the chapel.

And what we did just a little while ago—the blessing of the cornerstone—is proof that you are determined to rebuild the chapel for the glory of the Most Blessed Virgin. I am convinced that all of you will help to make of this shrine a shrine as beautiful, if not more beautiful, than that which was there before. And I am happy to see that you have come—despite the destruction, you have come from all parts of America. I also thank the priests who are present, and especially Msgr. Donahue, who has come from Los Angeles, to celebrate with us this Feast of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary.

In a few words I would like to show you how much the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, in this painful crisis that the Church is going through, should be our guide and our model. With her we are certain not to go astray. We shall look to her, we shall ask her what she did during the course of her life, what she has to teach us, and we shall see that the Most Blessed Virgin Mary teaches us just what the Church has taught us ever since, in the course of twenty centuries.

The first element that concerns the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, and that announces her, is found in the protogospel, in Genesis, where already Mary is presented as a queen going forth to battle, as the queen of hosts, queen of armies who gathers about herself all the forces of God, all the graces of God, and this to fight. To fight whom? To fight what? To fight the devil!

It is God Himself who announces this to the devil: "I shall place between thee—the devil, Satan—and the Virgin Mary an enmity." So the Virgin has an enemy. And not only an enmity between the Virgin Mary and Satan, but an enmity between the progeny of Satan and the progeny of Mary; between the world, between everything represented by those who are the children of Satan, but those who struggle against God, who detest God, and the Son of Mary, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and all those who will be the children of the Virgin Mary.

There are then, by the will of God, two armies in the world: an army of the children of the Virgin Mary, and an army of the children of Satan. And between them, God has placed an enmity, an enmity that will last until the end of time, until the end of the world. Consequently, the Virgin Mary, already, before being born, promised by God, draws us into a combat, into her combat, into the combat that will lead her to victory. A combat, however, which, alas, will often be waged in painful, in difficult, and in trying periods. But if we follow the Virgin Mary we are sure with her to achieve victory.

This victory that the Virgin Mary desires is a victory against Satan and, consequently, against sin. The Virgin Mary is the symbol of those who do not want to sin, who do not want to disobey God. This is the battle that the Virgin Mary is going to wage through the ages. So it is a great lesson that God gives us in announcing the birth of His Mother, in announcing that we shall have a Mother, a heavenly Mother, a Mother who will do battle. So we shall do battle with her and we must do battle against the common enemy who is Satan, and all those who with Satan are against God.

Perhaps you have observed nowadays in modern ecclesiastical literature that they no longer want to talk about the enemies of the Church, they no longer want to talk about the enemies of God, the enemies of Our Lord Jesus Christ. They would like these enemies to become brothers. Instead of combatting sin in them, the sin that removes them from God, by loving them, by seeking to convert them, it now seems that those who believe in the Virgin Mary, that the children of the Virgin Mary and those who are not children of the Virgin Mary, are all brothers.

Well, this is not true. We must strive to bring them to become children of Mary, but we cannot recognize them as children of God if they are not children of Mary.

The second lesson that the Most Blessed Virgin Mary gives us, when she was visited by the Angel Gabriel, is her faith. The first act noted for us in the Gospel on the occasion of the Annunciation is the faith of Mary. And her cousin Elizabeth congratulates her: "Beata quae credidisti: blessed art thou who hast believed." Yes, the Most Blessed Virgin Mary believed. She believed in whom, in what? She believed that the Son who was to be born of her was the Son of God; she believed in the Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ; she believed in the Divinity of her divine Son.

This is the great lesson that the Most Blessed Virgin Mary gives us. Henceforth, she lives only for the Reign of her Son, for the glory of her Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. In the greatest humility—she says herself that she was chosen because of her humility.

Saint Elizabeth did not hesitate to praise her precisely for this: "Blessed art thou, O Mary, because thou hast believed." This should also be our own first conviction: We must believe; we must believe that Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God. We must believe all our Credo, the whole faith that the Most Blessed Virgin had transmitted, that the Most Blessed Virgin manifested to the Apostles and that the Apostles transmitted. We must keep this faith intact. Let us ask the Virgin Mary to have faith like hers—to have faith as deep, as firm, as courageous as that of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary.

The third event in the life of the Virgin Mary that shows us how we should behave is what took place at the wedding feast of Cana. You remember that they ran out of wine during the wedding feast of Cana. The servants came to tell Mary that there was no more wine. And what did Mary tell the servants? "Do all that He tells you; do all that my divine Son tells you." This is the Gospel of Mary. All is summarized in this phrase: "Do what Jesus tells you."

Mary addresses these words to us as well, not only to the servants of Cana. At the very beginning of the period of evangelization of Our Lord, the Most Blessed Virgin is already speaking to us, is already speaking to those who will be the disciples of Our Lord. And when we appeal to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary to ask her what we should do in the difficult circumstances of our lives, the Most Blessed Virgin Mary will answer us just as she answered the servants at the wedding feast of Cana: "Do all that He tells you. Do the will of Our Lord. Observe the commandments of Our Lord Jesus Christ. If you do the will of Our Lord, if you do the will of my divine Son, then you will be saved. Then your soul, which is perhaps like water, will be changed into wine, a generous wine. Your soul will be filled with the grace of the Lord. Your soul will be filled with all that is necessary for you to fulfill the commandments of God. This is the third lesson that our heavenly Mother gives us.

The fourth lesson that the Most Blessed Virgin Mary gives us is her presence on Calvary. Her presence on Calvary, where she is not the priest who offers the sacrifice—the priest who offers the sacrifice is Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself—but the Most Blessed Virgin Mary is there, present. The Apostles are absent; only Saint John is with her.

By this presence on Calvary, the Virgin Mary shows us the importance of the Sacrifice of Calvary, and, consequently, the importance of the Sacrifice of the Mass. She is the Mother of priests. She is the Mother of all the faithful. And by this presence, standing before her divine Son, who is covered with blood, whose blood was poured forth for our sins, the Most Blessed Virgin Mary shows Him to us, and says to us, "See the love He has for you: my divine Son has given all His blood, this blood that I myself gave Him in my womb, this blood that is now all over His body. His heart is open. His head is pierced with thorns. His hands are pierced; His feet pierced—all that by love for you." And this will continue until the end of time through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Thus the Most Blessed Virgin Mary teaches us the great mystery of the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ, realized in the Sacrifice of Calvary, in the Sacrifice of the Mass, and in the Eucharist. For the Sacrifice of the Mass also gives us the Eucharist; this Flesh and Blood of the Victim that we must eat and drink to obtain eternal life. It is Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself who said so; "If you do not eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have eternal life." So Our Lord Jesus Christ accomplished this unimaginable, the incredible miracle of really giving us His body and His blood to eat and drink. This is what the great love of Our Lord Jesus Christ accomplished, and this is the lesson that the Virgin Mary gives us by her presence at the feet of her divine Son on Calvary.

Finally, the last lesson that the Most Blessed Virgin Mary gives us is that of her presence in the midst of the Apostles the day of Pentecost. It is through her that the graces will be given to the Apostles and that the Holy Ghost will descend upon the Apostles. The Church teaches us so. The Apostles were sanctified on that day by the Holy Ghost through the intercession of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, through the mediation of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary.

She no longer needed to receive the Holy Ghost. She was filled with the Holy Ghost. The Angel Gabriel had told her so: "Thou art filled with the Holy Ghost." She no longer needed to receive Him. But if she was present, it is because she wanted to communicate the Holy Ghost to the Apostles, and because Our Lord wanted Him to be communicated to them through her—to them and, consequently, to the Church. There she truly became the Mother of the Church, because it was she who by her mediation gave the Holy Ghost to the Apostles.

So the Most Blessed Virgin teaches us to love the Church, to love the Holy Ghost—the Holy Ghost, who is given to us by all the Sacraments instituted by Our Lord, and especially by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and by the Eucharist. This is what the Most Blessed Virgin Mary teaches us.

Therefore, we must be attached to the Church, and it is because we are attached to the Church that we defend our holy Mother the Church. The Roman Catholic Church is our mother. And it is because we are the devoted sons of the Church, because we love the Church, because we love Rome, because we love all those who truly represent the Holy Catholic Church, that we defend our faith, that we defend what the Virgin Mary has given us.

We do not want them to change our Church. We want no other Church. We want the Roman Catholic Church, that which the Most Blessed Virgin Mary communicated to the Apostles in the Holy Ghost. This is the Church that we want. This is the Church that we love—the Church of the Mother of Jesus, the Church of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, the Church of the Immaculate Conception, the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption. This is the Church that we want. This is the Church that we venerate, the Church to which we wish forever to remain subject. So we beg those who have posts of authority in the Church not to change our Church, to remain faithful to the Church of Mary, to remain faithful to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, to all the lessons that the Most Blessed Virgin Mary has given us.

And I beg you, my dear brethren, to be the leaven—the leaven of the Catholic Church, of this love for the Catholic Church, in all your regions, in all your families, in all your homes. Remain children of Mary, Pray to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. Meditate on the lessons that the Most Blessed Virgin Mary gives you. Then you will be true Catholics. You cannot be children of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, in a full and holy manner, without being the best children of the Catholic Church. This is what reassures us that we are indeed true sons of the Catholic Church.

So I am convinced that when you return home you will be true representatives of the Catholic Church, and that you will co all you can so that she continues, despite the difficulties, despite the trials, despite the contradictions. We must all pray together today for you to be witnesses. Just as the Apostles received the Holy Ghost through the Virgin Mary, and went forth to give witness to the Gospel throughout the world, so you also must be the witnesses of the Virgin Mary, of the Holy Ghost that you have received through her, and give witness to your faith in God, of your faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ, of your love for the Church, wherever you may be. This is what God desires.

You are the Church! You are the Church! You are the Catholic Church! So let us remain in this Church of the Virgin Mary. Let us confide in her. Let us confide to her our families, especially our children, who so need the help of the Virgin Mary to remain in the true Catholic faith.

I congratulate you with all my heart for preserving this faith. I also congratulate you with all my heart to see that you have so many children. We observe that half of the assembly here is composed of persons less than twenty years old. This is a sign, a sign of your fidelity to the Catholic Church, a sign of your fidelity to the commandments of God. I congratulate you, and I am sure that God's blessings are upon you.

I hope that next year, or perhaps in two years, I do not know, if, of course, God gives me life, that I shall be able again, with you to say Mass, no longer here, but to say it in our beautiful basilica, which will be rebuilt, by the grace of God. And we shall be able to sing the praises of the Virgin Mary, as we are doing today, but perhaps with still greater beauty and a still greater number of pilgrims.

May God bless you, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.[/b]

]]> The Angelus - September 1979

The Sermon of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, on the Feast of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin, 15 August 1979

Saint Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, during the Angelus Pilgrimage

]]> <![CDATA[Archbishop Lefebvre 1988: Stupefied by the Lack of Resistance]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=4971 Fri, 10 Mar 2023 12:07:04 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=4971 Archbishop Lefebvre: Stupefied by the Lack of Resistance
Spiritual Conference, Econe, 8 October, 1988
Adapted from here

What would the Archbishop think about the current betrayal of the SSPX, and especially about the lack of resistance against those who are actively trying to place the SSPX under the authority of Conciliar and modernist authorities? The following spiritual conference the Archbishop gave in 1988 gives us the answer in no uncertain terms: "lamentable", "stupefied", "really sad"..

And so we must also pray for all those who are hesitating or who are troubled in the current situation!

For us, there is no problem, as we are always in the framework of the Society, in the framework of the Church of all time, in fidelity to the Church of all time. But there certainly are [problems] for those who, as for example the monks of Le Barroux or the nuns of Le Barroux, many who are anguished or who are struggling to make a decision.

I also think of all those people in parishes who are hesitating. There is the case of the Guitton parish, and, I don’t know if it’s true, of Marly, of Port-Marly. So, for a certain number of people, they are wondering what they should do, whether they should leave the parish, to leave, to resist, to try to change the priest, whatever, it’s proving a real problem for them.

I don’t know for sure, but there’s a rumor it’s the same in Versaillles. I must admit that I doubt this a little bit because of two letters Canon Porta wrote me after the consecrations, assuring me of his fidelity. I’d be very, very surprised if it is true. There, that would cause some problems for all those who go to Notre-Dame-des-Armées, which is quite an important group. Will these questions and hesitations also arise for Wagram? It’s not certain. There may well be some hesitations in this area too.

So really, we must pray for all those faithful who are faced with difficult problems, even though no doubt most of them are with us, follow us and have no intention at all of leaving the Society. But faced with priests who are kind of abandoning them, and who are encouraging them to put themselves under the modernist authority of bishops, this is quite serious, obviously, and this poses a serious problem.

So if we have the opportunity either to correspond or to have contact with people who are in this situation, let us not be afraid to help them make courageous and firm decisions : we must remain in the Church of all time. There’s no question of us wavering.

No doubt you’ve all read the article in ‘Si Si No No’, which luckily was translated for ‘Courier De Rome’, which shows quite well that it is not just since today we’ve had to make these choices. It’s not just since the consecrations. It is since the Council! This article, ‘Neither Schismatic, Nor Excommunicated’ is in my opinion quite well written. In fact, this evening I received a letter from the Dom Putti’s nuns who take care of the publication of ‘Si Si No No’, in which they told me that this same article was fortunately a real big success. They gave me the example of a person of the village of Gênes who asked them for 1500 copies, which he all distibruted. I think it was written in a most admirable way, if you ask me. It really summarizes our position right from the start. It justified our position from the start right up to and including the consecrations, giving the reasons for the consecrations and resolving the difficulties one may have on this subject. It’s admirable and I find this a really extraordinary article.

So when they said at the start, effectively, Catholics are torn apart, it is really like that of course. This is how they put it:

Quote:Thus, to take a few examples, he has to choose between St. Pius X's encyclical Pascendi which condemns modernism and the present openly modernist ecclesiastical orientation. He has to choose between the monitum from the Holy Office in 1962, condemning the works of the Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin and the present ecclesiastical trend, which does not hesitate to quote these works, even in papal speeches. He has to choose between the already defined invalidity of Anglican ordinations and the present-day ecclesiastical orientation in pursuance of which, in 1982, a Roman pontiff, for the first time, took part in an Anglican rite in the Canterbury Cathedral and jointly blessed the crowd with the lay primate of this heretical and schismatic sect. He has to choose between the ex cathedra condemnation of Martin Luther and the present ecclesiastical trend which, "celebrating" the 5th centenary of the birth of the German heretic, declared in a letter signed by His Holiness, John Paul II, that today, thanks to the "common researches made by Catholic and Protestant scholars ...has appeared the deep religiosity of Luther."

And a little further..

Quote:He has to choose between the historical truth of the Gospels and the present ecclesiastical orientation. He has to choose between the Holy Scripture which declares the Jews unbelievers "by hatred of God," according to the Gospel, and the present ecclesiastical orientation which, in the speech of the first pope to visit the synagogue in Rome, discovers in the Jews, still unbelievers, "the elder brothers" of ignorant Catholics.

And so, I think that is exactly how it is, one must choose. There’s nothing else to do. We must choose the faith of all time. That is why I think, as in the declaration I had the opportunity to make after the first visit of these Belgian prelates who came in 1974, on the 11 November, and as in the declaration I had to make on the 21 November, saying : “We choose eternal Rome. We don’t want modernist Rome. We don’t want the new Rome, which is modernist.” That is what I said!

So, for us this poses no problem, I’d say because we find ourselves in a framework that allows us to do that [i.e. make these choices]. But among all these poor faithful who are pulled to the left and to the right, there are some who are truly troubled, it’s really serious!

It is sad to think that all these monks and nuns who went back to Le Barroux or to the Benedictines went back precisely because they made this choice. They did not return to modernist monasteries, who are under the Conciliar Church, who are under this modernist Church. They expressly chose Le Barroux in order to remain with Tradition, to remain with the Faith of all time. And now, they put them under the authority of the Conciliar Church. So we are really stupefied to think that, despite the things they surely see, and despite what they surely know, no.. they stay! They don’t make this decision to move on or to found another monastery, or to demand the resignation of Dom Gérard so he can be replaced, no, nothing.. they just obey.

That was also the case with Fontgombault, where Dom Roy has accepted the new mass. It was the case with Dom Augustin, who also accepted the new mass. And on it goes.. with Randol, and Jouques, the Benedictines of Jouques, these Benedictines who are very close to Tournaye. And it is lamentable to see with what ease a monastery that was with Tradition is placed under the authority of Conciliar and modernist authorities. And the whole world is quiet. It’s a pity and really sad to see this.

As for us, we rejoice when we see such clear articles as the one in ‘Courier De Rome’, which can really open the eyes of the faithful and give them the courage to resist and to persevere.

Likewise it is with the declaration which the good Father Thomas Aquinas made. Truly, his declaration is included in the little journal which our Swiss colleagues have started. Well, the statement is there and I note especially what it says here, and which is very clear:

Quote:We don’t follow Msgr. de Castro Meyer or Msgr. Lefebvre as ringleaders. We follow the Catholic Church. And at this moment, these two confessors are the only bishops who are against the auto demolition of the Church. It is not possible for us to disassociate ourselves from them. And so it is now as it was in the fourth century during the time of Arianism, when it was a sign of orthodoxy to be in communion with Athanasius.

That is very true. He is right, it shows the reason for the choice he made. Fortunately, there are at least a few monks who managed to escape the clutches of the Conciliar Church.

Then of course there are those who, like Dom Gérard and his Sisters, says:

Quote:But we haven’t changed in any way, there is no change with us. We continue the same office, the same liturgy, the same laws. What change is there in us ? Why are you disturbed ? There is no reason, we continue as we always have. We just continue under a different authority.

There is the danger! This other authority really exists. And she has already made herself felt. It is enough to look up in this same journal the declaration of the Archbishop of Lyons. That much is clear, when he concludes:

Quote:Let’s help one another along this road, to remain firmly attached to the second Vatican Council, to the whole Council, which is part of the Traditions of the Church. Let us carry on our apostolic work with full confidence. Let us give our best to announce the gospel, that is the essential part. That is the objective of our diocesan Synod, whose preparation will start in October.

The diocesan Synod, which will regulate the relations between the diocese and the monastery! And what will be the guidelines that will be given at that point in time ? That’s something we will have to find out. It’s all well to say that nothing has changed, but let’s wait a little bit.

So, we did not have to wait long for the decisions they took, for example those in regard to Fr. Bissig and Fr. Baumann. You know, they both used to be.., one was rector of a seminary and the other vice-rector. They were professors for a good number of years. They have taken our seminarians, they gathered them up, they guard them and they look out for them. We should believe they are not as bad as that? And then, in this seminary that is to be erected, how is this going to work in this seminary that, in principle, is supposed to remain with Tradition ? This seminary will need to make a pilgrimage to Igraspa, which is right on the border between Austria and Germany. And during this pilgrimage they will only celebrate the new mass, completely submitted to the bishop of Augsburg, and the professors and rector of the seminary will be diocesan priests, instead of Fr. Bisig and Fr. Baumann, who themselves will have to attend [the seminary] for a year and then pass an exam with the bishop in order to take up their assignment, if they get one at all! Can they not see this coming? This is exactly the stranglehold, not just on the formation, a formation which will be given by priests who are clearly Conciliar, of the Conciliar Church, but also on the liturgy. They will be forced to submit to the new liturgy. What will these seminarians do then? Will they accept all that, just like that ? Incredible ! They won’t say : “O, nothing has changed, nothing has changed..” So wherever possible, the Conciliar Church will immediately subject them to obedience to the Conciliar Church.

Obviously, with Dom Gérard it seems to be more difficult, more delicate. They don’t want to move too fast, because they know that if they went a little too hard and too fast, maybe they would cause the monastery to go back, and that would mean a step backwards. So they proceed skilfully, gently, a little bit at a time. What will probably happen, is that they will tell you:

Quote:“You must accept that the priests who will come on retreat with you, the diocesan priests, that they will be allowed to say the new mass, obviously, because they are used to the new mass. There’s no question about that. Then, when these diocesan priests present themselves to you for communion in the hand, we’ll permit them to receive communion in the hand in all the diocesan parishes. We don’t see why, now that you are part of the diocese and now that you share in the pastoral work, why you should be able to refuse communion in the hand to these diocesans who present themselves to you."

What will they do then, at that point, these monks of Le Barroux? Well, they will probably do what Dom Augustin did, accept. They now give communion in the hand at Dom Augustin’s. That’s how it is, there’s nothing they can do about it. This transfer of authority, that’s what’s grave, that’s what makes this really serious. It is not enough to say: “we haven’t changed on a practical level”. It’s this transfer [of authority] which is very serious because the intention of these authorities is to destroy Tradition. It is clear, the destruction of Tradition. We can’t do that. "Everyone must submit", this is what Cardinal Ratzinger very clearly said in an interview with the Frankfurt paper. He said: “It is inadmissible that there are Catholics who don’t submit to the thoughts of the whole of the episcopate.” That much is clear.

So let us pray for these brave people who need to make some decisions, that they may be firm and that they keep the faith.]]> Archbishop Lefebvre: Stupefied by the Lack of Resistance
Spiritual Conference, Econe, 8 October, 1988
Adapted from here

What would the Archbishop think about the current betrayal of the SSPX, and especially about the lack of resistance against those who are actively trying to place the SSPX under the authority of Conciliar and modernist authorities? The following spiritual conference the Archbishop gave in 1988 gives us the answer in no uncertain terms: "lamentable", "stupefied", "really sad"..

And so we must also pray for all those who are hesitating or who are troubled in the current situation!

For us, there is no problem, as we are always in the framework of the Society, in the framework of the Church of all time, in fidelity to the Church of all time. But there certainly are [problems] for those who, as for example the monks of Le Barroux or the nuns of Le Barroux, many who are anguished or who are struggling to make a decision.

I also think of all those people in parishes who are hesitating. There is the case of the Guitton parish, and, I don’t know if it’s true, of Marly, of Port-Marly. So, for a certain number of people, they are wondering what they should do, whether they should leave the parish, to leave, to resist, to try to change the priest, whatever, it’s proving a real problem for them.

I don’t know for sure, but there’s a rumor it’s the same in Versaillles. I must admit that I doubt this a little bit because of two letters Canon Porta wrote me after the consecrations, assuring me of his fidelity. I’d be very, very surprised if it is true. There, that would cause some problems for all those who go to Notre-Dame-des-Armées, which is quite an important group. Will these questions and hesitations also arise for Wagram? It’s not certain. There may well be some hesitations in this area too.

So really, we must pray for all those faithful who are faced with difficult problems, even though no doubt most of them are with us, follow us and have no intention at all of leaving the Society. But faced with priests who are kind of abandoning them, and who are encouraging them to put themselves under the modernist authority of bishops, this is quite serious, obviously, and this poses a serious problem.

So if we have the opportunity either to correspond or to have contact with people who are in this situation, let us not be afraid to help them make courageous and firm decisions : we must remain in the Church of all time. There’s no question of us wavering.

No doubt you’ve all read the article in ‘Si Si No No’, which luckily was translated for ‘Courier De Rome’, which shows quite well that it is not just since today we’ve had to make these choices. It’s not just since the consecrations. It is since the Council! This article, ‘Neither Schismatic, Nor Excommunicated’ is in my opinion quite well written. In fact, this evening I received a letter from the Dom Putti’s nuns who take care of the publication of ‘Si Si No No’, in which they told me that this same article was fortunately a real big success. They gave me the example of a person of the village of Gênes who asked them for 1500 copies, which he all distibruted. I think it was written in a most admirable way, if you ask me. It really summarizes our position right from the start. It justified our position from the start right up to and including the consecrations, giving the reasons for the consecrations and resolving the difficulties one may have on this subject. It’s admirable and I find this a really extraordinary article.

So when they said at the start, effectively, Catholics are torn apart, it is really like that of course. This is how they put it:

Quote:Thus, to take a few examples, he has to choose between St. Pius X's encyclical Pascendi which condemns modernism and the present openly modernist ecclesiastical orientation. He has to choose between the monitum from the Holy Office in 1962, condemning the works of the Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin and the present ecclesiastical trend, which does not hesitate to quote these works, even in papal speeches. He has to choose between the already defined invalidity of Anglican ordinations and the present-day ecclesiastical orientation in pursuance of which, in 1982, a Roman pontiff, for the first time, took part in an Anglican rite in the Canterbury Cathedral and jointly blessed the crowd with the lay primate of this heretical and schismatic sect. He has to choose between the ex cathedra condemnation of Martin Luther and the present ecclesiastical trend which, "celebrating" the 5th centenary of the birth of the German heretic, declared in a letter signed by His Holiness, John Paul II, that today, thanks to the "common researches made by Catholic and Protestant scholars ...has appeared the deep religiosity of Luther."

And a little further..

Quote:He has to choose between the historical truth of the Gospels and the present ecclesiastical orientation. He has to choose between the Holy Scripture which declares the Jews unbelievers "by hatred of God," according to the Gospel, and the present ecclesiastical orientation which, in the speech of the first pope to visit the synagogue in Rome, discovers in the Jews, still unbelievers, "the elder brothers" of ignorant Catholics.

Quote:We don’t follow Msgr. de Castro Meyer or Msgr. Lefebvre as ringleaders. We follow the Catholic Church. And at this moment, these two confessors are the only bishops who are against the auto demolition of the Church. It is not possible for us to disassociate ourselves from them. And so it is now as it was in the fourth century during the time of Arianism, when it was a sign of orthodoxy to be in communion with Athanasius.

Quote:But we haven’t changed in any way, there is no change with us. We continue the same office, the same liturgy, the same laws. What change is there in us ? Why are you disturbed ? There is no reason, we continue as we always have. We just continue under a different authority.

Quote:Let’s help one another along this road, to remain firmly attached to the second Vatican Council, to the whole Council, which is part of the Traditions of the Church. Let us carry on our apostolic work with full confidence. Let us give our best to announce the gospel, that is the essential part. That is the objective of our diocesan Synod, whose preparation will start in October.

Quote:“You must accept that the priests who will come on retreat with you, the diocesan priests, that they will be allowed to say the new mass, obviously, because they are used to the new mass. There’s no question about that. Then, when these diocesan priests present themselves to you for communion in the hand, we’ll permit them to receive communion in the hand in all the diocesan parishes. We don’t see why, now that you are part of the diocese and now that you share in the pastoral work, why you should be able to refuse communion in the hand to these diocesans who present themselves to you."

The Role of the [traditional] Priestly Society of St. Pius X in the Heart of the Church
Conference Given by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
Buenos Aires, Argentina 13 August 1981

Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is always a great joy for me to return to this beautiful Republic of Argentina. I'm already beginning to know the country, but unfortunately, I am not yet able to speak to you in Spanish and I will have to seek Father Faure's help to translate for me.

We know that many questions are being asked about my attitude in the Church, about my position in the Church. What is the attitude of Monsignor Lefebvre in the Catholic Church? What is the situation of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X in the heart of the Church?

I would like to be able to answer these questions in the most exact and correct manner. To do this I think we are obliged to consider briefly what the actual situation in the Church is, and in this way explain the reasons for our attitude and our position.

I think that finding myself before a select audience—before a profoundly Catholic audience—it will not be necessary for me to insist on what the situation in the Church was until Vatican Council II. It can be said, in a general way, that the Church, the men of the Church, such as they were during the time of Pope Pius XII, whom I knew personally when I was Apostolic Delegate for French Africa, were very different from what they are today. I had the opportunity to meet frequently with Pius XII every year for eleven years.

I can say that generally, in the Roman Congregations and in the Vatican, there existed a very profound sense of the Catholic Faith. They truly worked for the reign of the Faith of Our Lord Jesus Christ and for the social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ—a reign over people, over families and over society.

Indeed, you know well that for four centuries great efforts have been made to fight against that Catholic doctrine, that Faith of the Church, but the truth is that when one went to the Vatican, he would find that the Catholic Faith was alive in all those Roman Congregations and there would be found considerable support, above all for a missionary bishop such as I was. At that time, if we needed to enlighten our faith on some point of doctrine, it was sufficient to consult the congregation of the Holy Office to obtain a precise and clear answer, in conformity with the Faith of the Church and its Magisterium. There was no hesitation!

In the same way, to know what kind of relations the Vatican wanted to maintain between the Holy See and civil societies, it sufficed to direct oneself to the Secretariat of State which had then, very clear and very precise principles before the states which were not Catholic regarding Catholic states. For example, I remember well that in General Franco's time, in Spain, Pope Pius XII used to tell me that never had there been realized an agreement so conformed to Catholic doctrine as the agreement reached with the Spanish government. To make such a statement was a most extraordinary thing for the Holy Father to do.

There was experienced then, in all these dominions the secular knowledge of the Church, just as the knowledge and protection of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary towards her children can be felt. When the principles of the relations between the Vatican and the states were facilitated by the Catholic Faith there were no difficulties in anything having to do with relations of the states with the Church. Regarding Her mission of saving souls, when the states were Catholic, the Holy See counted on the support of the chiefs of state, of whom She asked that Our Lord Jesus Christ be the one to reign in society. When the chiefs of state drew up a constitution they would provide in the first article that "the Catholic religion is the only one officially recognized by the state." In this way, what the Holy See wanted was accomplished: the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of souls, not in order to have a temporal influence in those states.

Concerning states that were not Catholic, for example Senegal, where I spent fifteen years as Archbishop over 3,500,000 inhabitants. There were 3,000,000 Moslems and 500,000 Animists, of which, happily, 100,000 were converted to the Faith. We were, consequently, a small minority. And what did the Church do in this case? She sent priests, bishops, religious men and women, brothers of the Christian schools—brothers who were dedicated to teaching the people, so that slowly, surely, those who did not believe in Our Lord Jesus Christ, would be converted to the Church, would be transformed into Christians, even at the price of the blood of those preachers.

How many of these missionaries sent by the Church during the course of centuries have been massacred, massacred because they said that Our Lord Jesus Christ should be the King of people, King of society? These missionaries the Church has raised to Her altars and has considered them martyrs. In the same way the Church has raised to Her altars many saints, holy popes, holy bishops, holy priests, religious men and women, fathers of families, mothers of families, kings, queens, the poor. So did the Church show the example of these persons who had worked—each one in Her midst, who had worked in the course of their lives to sanctify themselves by the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ and to establish His reign in souls. All these kings and queens who have been canonized give us an extraordinary example which we would do well to adopt in our days.

How proud we could be to have in our day examples of kings and queens who would live like saints! What examples this would mean for the whole world! And that posture was conserved by the Church until the times of Pius XII.

But, unfortunately, we must recognize that something has changed in the Church. Of course, when I say the Church I am conscious of the fact that the Church cannot change, because the Church will always be eternal, holy, universal, catholic and apostolic. So that, when I speak of the Church, it is not realized or taken into account that I do not wish to attack the Church. I have an immense veneration for the Church and I think that I continue always working for the Church, as I did in the times of Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII.

But we cannot help recognizing that something important has changed in the Church.

If we go back to the first causes of the actual situation, if we look for the first author of these changes, we will meet the first enemy, the great enemy of Our Lord Jesus Christ, His sworn enemy—Satan himself. The devil always fought against Our Lord Jesus Christ and he could have thought he triumphed at the moment of the Crucifixion, at the moment of Calvary but there he was also defeated, for which reason he went on attacking the Mystical Body of Christ, the Holy Catholic Church, and then, from the beginning, and for three centuries, there were thousands and thousands of martyred Christians who gave testimony of the Faith—of their faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Then came the heresies, the schisms, the attacks against the Faith, the divisions brought to life by the devil and so, disgracefully, millions of Christians separated themselves from the Church. Satan also invented false religions which made the work of the missions difficult by making impossible the conversion of entire nations. That was the work of the devil for fifteen centuries, we can say, until the moment of the French Revolution.

Until that time the devil worked as an enemy of the Church, to destroy the Church from without and so he was able to take entire nations away from the Kingdom of Our Lord Jesus Christ and bring them to the gates of hell. Afterwards, to be more sure in his attacks on the Church, which was defended by her children and governed by those who were called lieutenants of Our Lord Jesus Christ by the Catholic princes, Satan attacked those same governments of the Catholic states and unleashed a persecution against those Catholic states which resulted in their no longer being Catholic states. The atheistic states, the states that did not profess any religion, persecuted the Catholic Church, which was then attacked by the same lay-states which had become anti-Catholic states. This constituted a considerable success for Satan within those states, those universities, those schools in which he formed generations imbued with liberalism, modernism, atheism, so that the moment arrived for Satan to take over those states. In the end, all Catholic homes allowed themselves to be penetrated by this climate.

Pope St. Pius X says in his first Encyclical of 1904:

Quote:"As of now the enemy is not outside of the Church but within the Church itself,"

and St. Pius X designates the places where the enemy is found: the enemy is in the seminaries, the enemy has infiltrated the seminaries, among the professors of the seminaries. This is clear! It is St. Pius X himself who says so!

Fifty years before this text from St. Pius X, Pope Pius IX showed the bishops the plan of the secret society and asked that the acts of the Italian secret societies be published. In these documents can be read:

Quote:"from now on we will penetrate the parishes and into the episcopates, and into the seminaries and so we will have parish priests, bishops and cardinals who will be our disciples, and from these cardinals we hope one day to have a pope, who will be imbued with our ideas and will not appear to have been elected by the secret societies. Thus the Christian people will think they are following the Chair of Peter and in its place they will follow us."

Fifty years later this satanic plan is realized, according to the same words of St. Pius X, and since then, since fifty years ago, in the fifty years following, not only secret societies revealed this plan and this acitivity, but even the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima and at LaSalette predicted that one day the enemy would mount to the highest positions in the Church. This means something very grave: that perhaps there will be no need to climb as high as the Holy Father but to the positions in command in the Church.

And so we come to Vatican Council II, in which those who were imbued with these modernist ideas would end up triumphant. I was witness, in particular, during a last session of the Advisory Council preparatory to the Council itself (I was a member of the Central Commission in which there were seventy Cardinals and twenty bishops, among which I was counted as President of the Episcopal Assembly of French Africa), to a violent discussion between Cardinal Bea and Cardinal Ottaviani about the document on religious freedom.

These two Cardinals confronted each other to such a point that Cardinal Ruffini (of Palermo) had to intervene, saying he was sorry to assist at such a serious discussion between two Cardinals, members of the College of Cardinals, and for this reason the only solution left was to appeal to the higher authority, that is to say, the Pope. In this session, Cardinal Bea entitled his thesis, "De libertate religiosa" ("About Religious Liberty"); on the contrary, Cardinal Ottaviani entitled it "About Religious Tolerance." This is how Cardinal Ottaviani defended the traditional thesis of the Church and Cardinal Bea, the liberal thesis. These two theses were submitted to a vote. The Cardinals voted and we proved, according to the results, that they were totally divided. Some were liberals and supported Cardinal Bea, and others were conservative and traditionalists and they supported Cardinal Ottaviani.

The result of this was, in agreement with what we have seen of the Council, that the liberals won. This cannot be denied. They were the ones who dominated in Vatican Council II, unfortunately, (disgracefully), with the support of His Holiness Paul VI. This was clearly appreciated when the names of the four moderators Pope Paul VI named to the Council were made known. These moderators were Cardinals Agagianiain, Suenens, Dopfner and Lercaro. Of these, only one was conservative: Cardinal Agagianian. He did not speak, but remained silent. He was a timid man, very discreet, who spoke little, he did not allow his influence to be felt. Cardinal Lercaro was the Bishop of Florence. His Vicar General in Florence was a member of the Communist Party. Cardinal Suenens, on his part, God only knows what he has done before and after the Council to extend his liberal ideas. For example: he gave conferences in Canada in favor of the marriage of priests. Cardinal Dopfner, on his part, kept his ecumenism very marked. He himself was saying that first came common prayer between Catholics and Protestants and then you could speak about doctrine. This made the majority of bishops who formed part of the Council follow the liberal minority, which, in fact, dominated in the Council. These were the three moderators of the Council, three moderators named by the Chair of Peter, and this shows what orientation the Chair of Peter had.

Several hours would be needed to be able to show you how the liberals dominated during the course of Vatican II. So that you can know this exactly, for yourselves, it seems opportune for me to advise you read a book by Fr. Ralph Wiltgen, The Rhine Flows into the Tiber, which was originally written in English and was then translated into other languages, and where it is impartially shown, because its author was not, properly speaking, a traditionalist, the image of the battle which developed in the Council between the liberals and some conservatives who could still speak.

We cannot forget that Pope John XXIII expressly asked the Cardinals of the Roman Curia, who were without doubt the most traditional, not to intervene in the discussions of the Council. In fact, even though the Roman Cardinals integrated the commissions they no longer spoke. This was a very hard blow for the conservative groups who were keeping themselves faithful to the tradition of the Catholic Church, who were not innovators, who were not modernists.

We met in a small group after the second year of the Council: Monseigneur Sigaud, Monseigneur Corli (Bishop of Gaeta), Monseigneur Castro Meyer (Bishop of Campos), and I, and we began to work so that we would be able to unite bishops who could oppose themselves to this great danger which was presenting itself throughout the Church. There were never more than two hundred and fifty of us.

I would like to give you just one example of what the Council was: We did everything possible so that Vatican Council II would condemn Communism. Being a pastoral council (we should not forget that Vatican II was a pastoral council), that is to say, a council which has as its principal preoccupation the salvation of souls, which has as its object the destruction of the errors that menace souls, it was necessary, without doubt that this Council should be opposed to the greatest danger presenting itself in this age, as is Communism—a danger which extends itself throughout the world.

This Council, where 2,500 bishops responsible for the Catholic Church were meeting was not capable of formally condemning Communism.

We, on our part, made all the effort possible to have Communism condemned. So we managed to get 450 signatures to ask for this condemnation. Monseigneur Siguad and I went to see Monseigneur Felici, the Secretary of the Council, carrying in our hands the signatures we had gathered within the time specified by the internal regulations, so that this condemnation of Communism could be proposed to the Council Fathers. When Monseigneur Garrone who was the Postulator of the Council made reference to this document, he said that only one bishop had presented the possibility of having Communism condemned, even though we had gathered 450 signatures. He said, "I haven't heard anyone speak of this." We know that Monseignor Glorieux, who was one of the secretaries of the Council, made this list of signatures disappear so that we could not look for others to present to the Council Fathers.

Confronted with this situation we thought we would direct ourselves to the bishops from behind the Iron Curtain: Cardinal Wyszynski, Cardinal Beran and Cardinal Slypyi, who had been persecuted by Communism, who had been imprisoned. We thought that if we could get the support of these three Cardinals, we might be able to get close to a thousand signatures. The two of us then went to see Cardinal Wyszynski, Cardinal Beran and Cardinal Slypyi. We had prepared a project with a very careful format in Monseignor Carli's charge, in which the Council Fathers were asked to condemn Communism.

In the first place, we went to see Cardinal Beran, who at that moment was Archbishop of Prague. Cardinal Beran said,

Quote:"I am totally in agreement with you, I want to sign the document, but not alone. If I sign alone, the Communists will attack my family in Czechoslovakia. I want to sign, but I want other bishops, other cardinals, to support this position also because if we are many it will be much more difficult for them to attack me."

He finally signed, and we promised him that if no other bishop signed the declaration, we would return his signature. Then we approached Cardinal Slypyi who lived in the Vatican itself, behind the sacristy at St. Peter's. When we met him and presented him with the document, he said,

Quote:"I am totally in agreement with you. If there is an error we should condemn, it is Communism. You already know what my position is, but I am guest of the Vatican, and I'm sure that up there (pointing to the cupola of St. Peter's), they don't want Communism condemned. I know this very well."

Lastly, we went to see Cardinal Wyszynski, and not finding him in his rooms I spoke to him on the telephone. Cardinal Wyszynski said to me,

Quote:"Monseigneur, you know what my intervention was on that point at the Council. I asked at the Council that a complete document be drawn up to condemn Communism and nobody supported me; my proposition was rejected, and I no longer want to do any intervening."

We saw ourselves obliged to return Cardinal Beran's (Archbishop of Prague) signature. This is the true story of this document on the condemnation of Communism which was never approved by the Council. This example alone shows what Vatican II was, a Council in which 2,500 Fathers were gathered together which did not confront Communism, the major enemy of God, of the Church, of all spiritual principles. A Council which acts in this manner condemns itself.

I'm not going to insist any more about all those doings of the Council, of that pastoral Council which produced fruits which were, without a doubt, disastrous. After the Council, the liberals who had triumphed completely during it, occupied all the commissions that were in charge of bringing forth the proclaimed reforms. All the persons who directed these commissions, which were those in charge of putting everything into practice, all the congregations were in the hands of the modernists and the liberals. Even now, we can say, generally, that the Roman Congregations are in the hands of the modernists and the liberals who have succeeded those who have died.

Having shown what my attitude was, I return then to the questions I asked at the beginning of this conference. Are you amazed that someone condemns us? Are you amazed that the authorities of the Church persecute us, me in particular, who together with Monseignor Siguad and Monseignor Carli were, in a way, inside the Council, the spearpoint, of Catholic tradition and to the fidelity of the Church of always, of fidelity to the Church? Now that the chiefs of the Roman Congregations are those liberals who triumphed at the Council, it is evident that they will have as their objective the persecution of all traditionalists.

Of me, for example, who have formed a seminary which has been approved in the regular manner by the bishop of the diocese of the place and which has been constituted in agreement with all the canonical rules. The fact that the seminary should have been developed has disquieted them and they have prepared a kind of plot against it and against the Society which I have founded; a plot, definitely against us, to accomplish the suppression of the tradition of the Church. I don't think this can surprise anyone. We can affirm that they don't have enemies on the left, they only have enemies on the right. Time goes by and I would not like to tire you.

If I were to give you all the details of this plot and of the form in which the condemnation of my seminary and of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X was arrived at, you would be astounded. I give you just one detail: after the visit which took place at the Seminary at Ecône, Switzerland, by two monsignors sent from Rome, I was invited to that city by three Cardinals to give some complementary information. This meeting to which I was invited, did not constitute in any way an ecclesiastical court. It can be said that it was simply a visit in courtesy.

At the beginning of the interview, present at which were Cardinal Garrone, Cardinal Wright and the Spanish Cardinal Tabera, Cardinal Garrone asked me, "Monseigneur, will you permit us to record this conversation?" I told him that they could record it on the condition that they would afterwards give me a copy of same. He said, "Yes, of course, we will give it to you."

Nevertheless, having finished the conference, when I asked them for the copy of the conversation, they denied it to me. A second example that shows what this interview with the Roman Cardinals was: wanting to know who had named those Cardinals to interview me, if they constituted a commission, if it had to do with a particular initiative or was something that the Pope had ordered—and that I didn't know anything about, had no document, no official note and never had anything like it been done at the Vatican. I directed myself to Cardinal Staffa, who was the President of the Apostolic Assignment of the Roman Tribunal, and there I presented a recourse of complaint. I paid the fees which are demanded in the Roman Tribunal, so that I could present a complaint and I was given a receipt.

Once I did this, Cardinal Villot, who was at that time the Secretary of State, wrote a letter by his hand and in his own handwriting, to Cardinal Staffa, forbidding him to give me any document and ordering him to close the process immediately. In this way, we can see how the executive power injected itself into the sphere of the judicial power. Something which had never happened in the Church and it kept Cardinal Staffa from passing judgment on my complaint. In such a way that the Society, my seminaries and I, myself, were condemned without due process, without judgment, without documents and without being able to relate this condemnation to the visit of the two monsignors to Ecône.

I myself had the opportunity to tell Pope John Paul II (I had already told Pope Paul VI) that the form in which I had been condemned was worse than that used by the Soviets: at least they establish the farce of a tribunal; in my case, even that wasn't allowed. In fact, I should close my seminaries, immediately expel my seminarians who were at their studies in the middle of the year, and then dismiss all the teachers. You understand that a situation like this one can only be attributed to the occupation of the Church—the occupation of the Church by modernism which persecutes the traditionalists.

Remember the story of Cardinal Mindszenty? The way in which that Cardinal was treated by the Vatican can be considered ignoble. Cardinal Mindszenty, the hero of his people, who wanted to remain for many years in the selfsame Hungary, shut up in the United States Embassy to be near his people, was treated worse by the Roman Congregations, the Roman Curia, than he had been by the Soviets. Cardinal Slypyi is another example. He himself told me,

Quote:"I have been treated worse here, in Rome, than I was in Ukrainia."

One more example: Cardinal Wysznski. When he went into Rome he was watched, without being able to circulate freely around the city. All of this shows an absolutely ignoble persecution. Why? Because these three Cardinals were traditionalists. Then, when they tell us, "You should obey," we answer them,

Quote:"We don't want to obey the enemies of the Church. I do not want to obey those who destroy the Church. I do not admit it."

What Pope Paul VI entitled the "auto-destruction" of the Church is nothing else than what the self-same bishops and priests are realizing within the Catholic Church. I do not want to contribute to the destruction of the Church!

What I have just finished telling you is sad, but the Cardinals who are actually in Rome, whose names you certainly know, continue in this new policy, this new attitude of the Church, contrary to the tradition of Christ. Be it through the liturgy, through teaching, through the catechism, through the general policy of the Church before states and civil societies, a completely new orientation has been imposed. Everything has changed in the Church.

In the liturgy it is very clear. All our sacraments have been overthrown and subverted, all the old books have been suppressed and replaced by new books. This is not treating of a reform like that of St. Pius V, which had as its objective to remove from the Mass the additions made during the years which were precisely not in agreement with Tradition. The reform of St. Pius X had the same sense: elements were removed which had been acquired in preceding years which were not very conformed to Tradition, so as to return to that Tradition. But here one treats of the suppression of Tradition, of a new concept of the Mass, a concept which is more Protestant than Catholic, which was accomplished through the presence of six Protestant pastors who were called to transform our Mass.

It's a new thing in the treatment of the Mass, of the Holy Mass of always: to call six pastors so that they came to change it. What could these Protestants say when they were asked: "What would you like us to change in the Mass?" but to align our liturgy with the Protestant liturgy. This is the sense of the dialogue which is so much spoken of, a very grave attitude which responds to a general principle, to consider the religion of others as true as ours. Consequently, to consider that the Catholic religion is not the only religion through which one can be saved, the only divine religion, founded by God, founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ, with a perfectly different orientation from the others—it is inconceivable!

The Church itself has asked the states to not be Catholic states any more, to suppress the first articles of their constitutions, which say: 'The Catholic religion is the only religion recognized by the State." It is the Holy See itself which has asked this of the different states and it is because of this that there are no more Catholic states. That is finished. Because the Holy See desires that all religions be recognized equally in all the states, that all religions be equal. This is a completely new orientation for the Church. Never has the Church accepted, never has the Church taken this stand. The Church has never accepted that Our Lord Jesus Christ be put on an equal footing with Buddha, Luther and all those founders of false religions.

From the political point of view, you know well, you know perfectly, in almost the whole world, the Episcopates positively favor the Communist revolution and socialism.

In France, the election of Mitterand was owed to a large degree to the efforts of the bishops and priests who asked the faithful to vote in socialism. Result: we have four Communist ministers and this with the support of bishops and clerics. It's unimaginable! Rome did not intervene to prevent this socialist government from taking hold in France. A government, that is, in its deeds, militantly atheistic and which will monopolize all the teaching and which, consequently, will have all the Catholic schools in its hands.

When I had the opportunity to travel to Mexico last January, the Mexican Episcopate published a document which expressly approved of the revolution in El Salvador, to the point of asking that the Mexican Catholics contribute—be it with arms to go and fight against the government, be it with money to help the revolution. Where are we going? What Church is this? They tell us: "You disobey!" But, should we obey? Could it be that these bishops represent the Church? Without a doubt, there are still good bishops and these bishops are persecuted. You have an example in your homeland—Monsignor Tortolo, who never became Cardinal and who could well have been the Archbishop of Buenos Aires. The case of Monsignor Morcillo, Archbishop of Madrid, whom I know very well, consitutes another example. Monsignor Morcillo was never a Cardinal. They used to tell him, "You can't be a Cardinal because the primary diocese in Spain is the diocese of Toledo, therefore being a Cardinal corresponds only to the Bishop of Toledo." Immediately after the death of Monsignor Morcillo, Monsignor Tarancon who was the Archbishop of Madrid, was raised to the cardinalate. All the secretaries of the Council were named Cardinal, but Monsignor Morcillo, also a secretary, never was.

Cardinal Siri, who was President of the Italian Episcopal Conference was stripped of his office only one month after the election of Paul VI. We have to say that there are enemies of the Church who have occupied the Church. The Church is occupied!

You know Cardinal Pironio very well. A Cardinal who, having the ideas and attitudes he does, was named President of the Congregation for Religious. Another example, Cardinal Knox. A Cardinal who is, in fact, sacrilegious. During the Eucharistic Congress at Melbourne (at that moment I was in Australia, although I did not assist at the Congress), the so-called "Kamburu Mass" took place. What is a "Kamburu Mass"? He made the primitive population who live in the interior in Australia come. Men dressed in a manner you can just imagine, who danced on the platform which had been prepared for the Mass, next to the altar; they danced their primitive dances while the words of Consecration were being pronounced. What this man did is a sacrilege, and this man was named Prefect of the Congregation of Rites. What can this man do before such a Congregation?

Cardinal Baggio, for example, who was Apostolic Nuncio in Chile, and had to abandon the country for reasons not very favorable to him (you have only to ask the government of Chile what those reasons were), it's he who is now in charge of the naming of bishops!

Cardinal Casaroli, actual Secretary of State, can be found on the list of the Masonic Lodge P2 which is published by the newspapers. I'm not the one who says so, it's the Italian newspapers.

How can it be conceived that the Church continue its work of sanctification by means of those men? While they are at the head of the Church, we traditionalists will always be persecuted, and the Church will continue its auto-destruction.

I conclude. On our part, we have already chosen and we will not change that choice. We want to follow the Church that has always been. We want to remain faithful to the 250 popes who have defended Tradition and the Catholic Faith. We want to continue the priesthood in the Church and it is for that reason that we will continue to ordain priests in spite of the prohibition from Rome. We want to ordain true priests so that they can continue praying the true Mass, throughout the world and the length of history. This is indispensable.

All those liturgical reforms have been made by that evil spirit of ecumenism, of false ecumenism. It is because of this that the Faith has disappeared and that there are no longer any vocations. I have had the joy of already ordaining more than one hundred young priests, members of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X.

In October, we will have 270 seminarians, seminarians who belong to the five seminaries which have been founded in only ten years. You know that we have actually begun the work of a seminary here, in the Argentine Republic, forty kilometers from Buenos Aires, the La Reja neighborhood, where we already have twenty vocations, without counting the seminarians who, having completed their year of spirituality in the Argentine seminary, are now continuing their studies at Ecône, at Albano, or those having a monastic vocation are following it at Bedoin and San Michel-en-Brenne, France.

This [Argentine] seminary is under the particular care of Reverend Father Michel Faure and its director is Father Morello. We want to build a seminary capable of sheltering 120 seminarians, who will come from all the countries of Spanish America, to continue that priesthood of which I am speaking to you, to continue the Catholic Faith in these lands. Where will your children go if they no longer have Catholic schools? Because in the Catholic schools that actually exist, they are taught principles contrary to the Faith.

We have made our choice. We will not change it because we want to be Catholic. We want to die Catholics.

[Emphasis - The Catacombs]]]> The Angelus - February 1982

The Role of the [traditional] Priestly Society of St. Pius X in the Heart of the Church
Conference Given by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
Buenos Aires, Argentina 13 August 1981

Quote:"As of now the enemy is not outside of the Church but within the Church itself,"

Quote:"from now on we will penetrate the parishes and into the episcopates, and into the seminaries and so we will have parish priests, bishops and cardinals who will be our disciples, and from these cardinals we hope one day to have a pope, who will be imbued with our ideas and will not appear to have been elected by the secret societies. Thus the Christian people will think they are following the Chair of Peter and in its place they will follow us."

Quote:"I am totally in agreement with you, I want to sign the document, but not alone. If I sign alone, the Communists will attack my family in Czechoslovakia. I want to sign, but I want other bishops, other cardinals, to support this position also because if we are many it will be much more difficult for them to attack me."

Quote:"I am totally in agreement with you. If there is an error we should condemn, it is Communism. You already know what my position is, but I am guest of the Vatican, and I'm sure that up there (pointing to the cupola of St. Peter's), they don't want Communism condemned. I know this very well."

Lastly, we went to see Cardinal Wyszynski, and not finding him in his rooms I spoke to him on the telephone. Cardinal Wyszynski said to me,

Quote:"Monseigneur, you know what my intervention was on that point at the Council. I asked at the Council that a complete document be drawn up to condemn Communism and nobody supported me; my proposition was rejected, and I no longer want to do any intervening."

Quote:"I have been treated worse here, in Rome, than I was in Ukrainia."

Quote:"We don't want to obey the enemies of the Church. I do not want to obey those who destroy the Church. I do not admit it."

Archbishop Lefebvre on the New Mass – March 21, 1978

I will continue the study of these few questions which have been submitted to me. We have not finished the answer to the question about assistance at Mass possibly during your vacations and on certain occasions, whether you are with your family or there are ceremonies that you are invited to. What should be done? What should be our attitude in general towards these New Masses, even if it would be difficult to be able to assist at a Mass of Saint Pius V?

I believe that we must be more and more severe. Why? Because as I have already told you many times, our attitude also conforms to the evolution which is little by little taking place in people’s minds, and I would even say especially in the minds of priests by dint of living in an atmosphere of errors, in an atmosphere contrary to the Faith, intentions can change. The thoughts and judgments that priests can make about their own Masses can end up changing. And I believe that this is not at all illusory, even sometimes for priests who were very close to us, who loved Tradition, but who, by being in this atmosphere created by the liturgical reform, end up slowly but surely somehow losing the Faith, or at least changing their Faith on certain points of the Holy Mass, and this can in the long run influence their intention.

This is why I think that, given this increasingly serious and increasingly dangerous evolution, we must also avoid more and more, and I would almost say, in a radical way, any assistance at this New Mass.

It is obvious that if you are convinced that all these Masses are invalid, you should not go to them. That is clear. One do not go to an invalid Mass; it would be a sacrilege. But I do not personally believe that we can affirm this in an absolute manner. Even Father Guérard des Lauriers arrived at this conclusion after a long journey; but he is not absolutely certain of it. He still has some reservations because it is obvious that what is essential for the validity of the Mass is the required matter, the required form, and the
intention.

As for the matter, we still can believe that it is really bread and wine that they are using as the matter of the Eucharist. Still, we have to see …. The wine, we can sometimes wonder what kind of wine is now taken by priests who no longer pay any attention to whether it is a natural wine, if it is a wine that does not have too much alcohol. For, finally, take your books on morals and see what is required for the matter of the Mass. There are still conditions in order to ensure that it is really natural wine and not fabricated wine.

Next, the form. Here, you know that it is always in the translations that one can hesitate on the form, because the form in Latin, as it was given by the reform, still bears the term pro multis for the form which is used for the consecration of the wine. But the translation in most languages is absolutely false since, whether it is in English, Italian, Spanish, or German, it is always for all: pro omnibus which is absolutely contrary to what the Church meant, and consequently, what Our Lord Himself meant when He pronounced these words. There is, I think, a page and a half which speaks of this in the Catechism of the Council of Trent in order to explain why, in the form, there is pro multis and not pro omnibus. The Catechism of the Council of Trent explains this perfectly because in reality, in the application of the Redemption, not everyone is saved. Not in the purpose of the Redemption. The purpose of the Redemption is to save all men. But the real application of the Redemption, unfortunately, does not benefit all men, through the fault of men who do not want to receive the graces of the Redemption. This is why the term used means the application of the Redemption.

Does this change in the vernacular languages affect the validity of the form? There are books that were written on this, by Americans, by Germans, about this form in particular. A number of them conclude that it is invalid. However, if we study in theology books even what St. Thomas thinks of the form of the sacrament of the Eucharist, it seems that the most general opinion is that the essential words are these words: “Hoc est Corpus meum, hic est calix Sanguinis mei, novi et aeterni et testament.” I also think that the phrase, Mysterium fidei, which is perhaps a phrase that goes back even to Our Lord Himself … It seems that these words go back at least to the time of the apostles. It is quite certain that during the forty days that Our Lord spent with the apostles after His resurrection, He must have certainly given them precise instructions – why not? – on the most important thing, on the essential thing of His redemption: His sacrifice, the sacrifice of Calvary. So would it be surprising that Our Lord spoke of it in a precise manner, bequeathing to the apostles the real form they were to use to realize again this sacrifice on our altars? Is this something unbelievable? When we say that it goes back to apostolic times, as the Council of Trent affirms, and as all the Fathers of the Church affirm, we can believe that they also received precise instructions from Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. But this phrase of Mysterium fidei would nevertheless make one think that the Real Presence already exists before the end of the formula.

Although, if a priest were to fall sick while pronouncing the words of the Consecration and stop in the middle of the Consecration, obviously the priest must continue the formula in order to ensure the Real Presence, but it is not certain if all the words are absolutely necessary for the Real Presence, because the fact that the priest already says Mysterium fidei, it seems that the mystery is then already realized at that moment. The priest exclaims before the mystery which is realized, the great mystery of our Faith. This is perhaps not a definitive argument, but anyway, it is nevertheless a fact that most theologians think that the Real Presence already exists at the first words of the consecration of the Precious Blood.

But the more one examine this liturgical reform, the more one wonder what may have been the intentions of the authors. What idea, what advantage did they think of acquiring by changing these words of the sacramental form which have been said for centuries and centuries by the Church? But what advantage, I ask you? Why remove Mysterium fidei, why change something in the form? Why add quod pro vobis tradetur in the form of the consecration of the bread? It is unbelievable … except for ecumenical thoughts, because the Protestants say that, because the Protestants have suppressed Mysterium fidei and because the Protestants have added quod pro vobis tradetur, and the Protestants wanted to exactly reproduce the Last Supper, the Last Supper which for them was not a sacrifice. So our Last Supper, our Eucharist is not a sacrifice for them, for the Protestants.

And that is why they wanted to reproduce the evangelical Last Supper which for us is a sacrifice. Never forget that the Council of Trent explicitly said: If any one shall say that there was no sacrifice at the Last Supper when Our Lord Jesus Christ instituted the Eucharist, let him be anathema! So Our Lord made a sacrifice at the Last Supper, a sacrifice which is obviously related to the Sacrifice that He will offer on the Cross, but it is a sacrifice.

We, too, our sacrifice is made after, is related to the sacrifice of the Cross. The Last Supper was also a sacrifice made in relation to the sacrifice of the Cross which was accomplished afterwards. So we don’t see any other explanation. No matter how hard we look. Why did they change something? We don’t see why. There are no possible explanations, except an ecumenical explanation, which brings us closer to the Protestants. I ask you: how is it possible to go and transform our Mass to make it similar to that of the Protestants who do not believe in the Sacrifice of the Mass, who added this precisely because they do not believe in the Sacrifice of the Mass? It is unheard of!

So of course we can ask these questions. These questions are not in vain. We can ask the question: is the form as it is said, at least in the vernacular languages, really valid? We can ask the question! And finally, the intention. The intention of doing what the Church does. So there are some who say: - What the Church does today is the New Mass. Ah! But no … what the Church does, and when we say the Church, it is the Church of All Time. The intention of the Church – even if we say what the Church does when we use the indicative, and not what the Church did, but quod facit Ecclesia –it is what the Church of All Time does, and therefore, since the Apostles. So we must have this intention of doing what the Church does, what She did, what She will do … always, always the same thing.

So the intention must be based on what the Church has always wanted to do, so a true sacrifice, and not simply a commemoration and not simply a meal. Now it is quite certain that the young priests at present, in the manner in which they are taught, must not have the intention of doing what the Council of Trent does. Because, precisely, as they broke with the Council of Trent – given that the Council of Trent very clearly defined the Mass as a sacrifice, and defined the priesthood, which is not a priesthood of the faithful, in a very clear way – and so I think these young priests say: - I want to say the New Mass and not the old! So they make a rupture in the Church; they do not have the right. They do not have the right to break up the Church. There is not a Church of today and a Church of yesterday: there is the Church of All Time. This Church is only one Church; otherwise there would be a Church every day, at every moment then!

I think precisely that this intention may become that of the priests who constantly say the New Mass. I think that at the end of one or two years, when they have said this New Mass, in the end, they really have the impression of saying a new Mass and not the traditional Mass. They no longer have this conception of saying the traditional Mass. I think there are some, however, a number of them, but few, who belong to these associations, such as that of Canon Quata or others, who resist and who have an intention contrary to what they are doing. It is unbelievable. It is unheard of to do such a thing, but because they believe that they are obliged to take this new rite because of their bishops, they are afraid of being dismissed or any possible reasons they can imagine and which, in my opinion, are worth nothing… but anyway, the facts are there. And certainly a good number of these priests say: I want to say the Mass of my ordination. I want to continue to have the intention that I always had during my priestly life and I want to, now, even with this rite, say the Mass of All Time. So in such cases, it is possible that these Masses are valid. But this is not a reason, and it is very serious to put oneself in this danger, to risk little by little the faith in the Sacrifice of the Mass, and in any case, to make their faithful lose it also. It is unacceptable for a priest, when he realizes this. But little by little, it is a question of habit. One forms one’s conscience and one no longer sees; one becomes blind.

This is why I think we must avoid going to these Masses. And even if we must be without Masses for a month, we are without Masses for a month. Parents are explaining to their children why they do not go to Mass and if they make a long journey to go to Mass once a month … You know, in our missions we visited our faithful once every three months. Most of our faithful had Mass once every three months. In South America, I had the opportunity, as Superior General, to found a mission in Paraguay, in a little village called Lima; it is not the big city of Lima in Peru, but it is a little village. Incidentally, I received a letter from them four or five days ago, with all the stamps – the stamps of the president of the village, the president of this, the president of that; they all have magnificent stamps. And then it is signed, re-signed and countersigned to beg me: - But you gave us priests in the past. We had a very good priest in the person of Father Tchang who is a Trinidadian and who did us a lot of good, who kept good traditions. He was taken away from us. He was sent back to Trinidad and now we have a priest who is demolishing our whole religion. So we learned that you are making priests according to Tradition. Send us a priest like Father Tchang who did us so much good in Paraguay! ...

So, if there is one that is available! ...

But in those countries, when I arrived in Lima, they were visited once a year. And when I visited the Amazon where our Fathers had missions as well, some of these villages have only one visit every three years. Obviously it is not ideal, that is clear, but at least those people keep the Faith. They pray. On Sundays, they gather together: there is a catechist or a village chief, a president, who gathers them together – not like they do now to eliminate the priests, to remove the priests, to replace the priest by a layperson, but because there are no priests. So they pray; they sanctify Sunday. The priests give them prayers that they must recite, the Gospel that they read and recite. They get together, they pray, they sing, and they make a spiritual communion. They think of the Masses which are celebrated far away from them, but which are celebrated in the world. So this is a different thing than what they are doing now, to practically remove all the priests and replace them with laypeople because they no longer believe in the Mass. That is completely different.

So one can keep the Faith without going to Mass every Sunday, rather than going to a Mass which is more or less poisoned, which makes one risk losing the Faith.

But I think, however, since I do not believe, once again, that all these Masses are invalid, that on certain occasions, for the death of a close relative – in such a case, one does not go for the Mass, but one goes by filial piety, for example for one’s parents, one’s father, one’s mother, one’s brother, one’s sister … like one can possibly go to an Orthodox burial, like an Orthodox can come to assist also at our ceremonies, for extraordinary events.

But I think that we must be more and more severe and more and more radical on this subject because the Masses are always deteriorating a little; the Faith diminishes. And consequently, one is more and more likely to find oneself in front of a Mass which is not valid. So, to go to a doubtful Mass … I am not telling you, either, when you enter a Church – I suppose you visit the Church; you see the sanctuary lamp; you wonder if the Blessed Sacrament is present. You ask yourself: - Am I going to make a genuflection, because I do not know who said the Mass. Is it valid or not? … I believe that we can always make a genuflection, while saying: - My God, if You are present, I adore You. Rather than manifesting publicly, while saying: - No, I am making a genuflection because the Blessed Sacrament is certainly not there! If you are certain that the Blessed Sacrament is not there, you are not obliged to make a genuflection. But I think that if there is a doubt, it would be better, anyway, to make a genuflection, thinking that you are adoring Our Lord there, where He is present, and that if He is present, at least there is someone who adores Him, since they no longer adore Him now. They put Him aside and they no longer make gestures of adoration! So I think it would be better in such cases not to show, even to people who are there, a kind of attitude that may not be understood either!

So you see, I think that the intention of the priest at Mass can be affected by a bad habit.]]> Ecclesia Militans [emphasis mine]:

Archbishop Lefebvre on the New Mass – March 21, 1978

on the Oath of fidelity to the positions of the SSPX. (Part II, about the N.O.M)

Taken from here [adapted, emphasis mine].

So, concerning the Rite of the Mass, you have three small articles on it:

"I admit that the Masses celebrated according to the new rite are not all invalid, in view of the bad translations, of [its] ambiguity ..."

You have on that subject some explanations from the book of Mr. Salleron, those are in my opinion, probably the best ones which were given and the most complete. He really made a study on Novus Ordo. It's hard to do it more perfectly and more completely then what he did very courageously. He is not afraid to say in which way the Novus Ordo is equivocal. There are three chapters, one after the other, which show that it is equivocal and it is clear that the Novus Ordo favors heresy. For those reasons, the Novus Ordo is a failure. There are three chapters which are very well written for us now.

Also, his whole analysis of the Novus Ordo and the whole history with all very well studied documents are really enlightening. If someone is still adhering to the Novus Ordo after having read that book, it is because he will never understand anything. Besides, that is why I brought it with me to the Holy Office. And then, when they talked with me about the Novus Ordo they interrogated me. “So concerning the Novus Ordo; how is it that you say some rather serious things about it?” So, I can assure you they asked me questions. It's shocking... “Do you maintain that a faithful Catholic can think and affirm that a sacramental Rite, especially the one of the Mass, approved and promulgated by the Pope, can be nonconforming with the Catholic faith or favor heresy?” I said: “Well here! You are holding the book. It’s not even my words, you see! But I agree absolutely with what he says: equivocal Mass, Mass favoring heresy ...”

So, I also advise you to have this in your library, this book by Salleron, and to give it to the people who are hesitant. “But, even so, [in] the Novus Ordo, we know priests who are brave, who are good and who are trying say it well etc.…” Read this! You will see! It is the Novus Ordo in itself! It is not the priest who is saying it. It is not because he says it piously or anything that the New Rite changes. It is not because it changes anything in the Rite of the Mass. It is obvious that this new Rite is a Rite that has been made only to draw us closer to the Protestants! That is clear! Finally, clear!

On this subject, reread also the article by Father Boyer in the supplement of the Catholic Theological Dictionary. After the table of contents, there are a few articles and in particular a very long article by Father Boyer who was my teacher at the Gregorian, who is now dead, and who was very highly regarded, a man of value who was, for some time, Secretary of the Secretariat for Christian unity. Basically, I think he was named in this Secretariat to give a slightly more traditional image and to give some confidence to the people. As you know, Father Boyer was a respected man, highly regarded in Roman circles and among teachers. He wrote a long article on ecumenism, an article very well documented where he quotes some phrases of Pope Paul VI requesting that we go as far as possible in suppressing everything that can hinder the Protestants in our ceremonies, excluding, obviously, what might be contrary to the Faith. But, I do not see how we can change the texts of our Mass and diminish them without harming the Faith? It is not possible! The Mass is everything! Once we remove what bothers the Protestants, how can we say that we are not going to touch the Faith? It is contradictory. They are unbelievable orders, and that is literally written by Father Boyer. So what do you want to do?

"And that's why I never will celebrate the Mass according to the New Rite, even under threat of ecclesiastical penalties and I will never advise anyone positively to participate actively in such a mass."

Because people are still asking us those questions: “I have not the Mass of St. Pius V on Sunday, and there is a Mass said by a priest that I know well, a holy man, so, wouldn’t be better to go to the Mass of this priest, even if it is the New Mass but said with piety instead of retaining myself?”

No! That's not true! This is not true! Because this Rite is bad! Is bad, is bad. This is the reason why this rite is bad, [it] is poisoned! It is a Rite poisoned! Mr. Salleron says it very well here: "It is not a choice between two rites that would be good! This is a choice between a Catholic Rite and a rite practically, neighboring the Protestantism!” Its harm our Faith, the Catholic Faith!

So, it is out of question to encourage people to go to Mass in the New Rite, because slowly, even without realizing it, they end up ecumenist! It’s strange, but it's like that. It is a fact. Then, ask them questions on ecumenism, on what they think of the relations with other religions and you will see! They are all ecumenist. For the priest himself, the fact of saying this [New] Mass and celebrating it in a constant manner, even without thinking about anything, about its origin, or why it was made, turns him and the people who assist to it ecumenist. And, if we are asking them about ecumenism, their answer will be: “But of course! We can be saved in all religions, it's obvious! This is the New Mass, the Novus Ordo Missae.

Of course, that's why it is said: “in a positive manner to participate actively at such a Mass." But we can eventually, for reasons, as it is written in Canon Law like Orthodox ceremonies, assist passively. For a wedding, parent’s funerals or things like that, where we feel obliged to be present and we cannot do otherwise, we assist passively. We don’t receive Communion, we are not participating in the Mass, but we are doing it more out of politeness towards the people who assist to it, than for assisting at the sacrifice of the Mass. Those are conditions that are already mentioned in the Canon Law, the old Canon Law. But attending to [the Novus Ordo] in order to replace Sunday Mass … No! It is better to stay home reading and going once a month. Make the effort to go once a month and do 100 km if necessary, to attend the Catholic Mass! Like in the missions, we were visiting our faithful [in Africa] three times a year. We could not do more! That was the average. This didn’t mean that they were bad Christians. They could not do it otherwise. It is not an impossible thing. So we say: "But am I not doing a grave sin by not going to Mass?” Not at that Mass! It does not oblige under pain of grave sin. We are never forced to do an act that tends to diminish our faith. It's not possible. God cannot force us to do an act like this. On the other hand, we are seriously obliged to do everything possible to attend the Mass of St. Pius V, the Catholic Mass. There, the obligation remains, but not for a rite that is almost Protestant. On the contrary, there is an obligation not to go.

I'm a little surprised, you know. Sometimes, I receive a lot of requests for consultations from our priests who are in the priories and some are asking me: “What should one reply to a person who says he cannot have the Mass of St. Pius V and who believes that he is under the obligation to go to a Mass of the New Rite, said by a good priest, a serious priest who offers all the guarantees almost of holiness? etc. “But, I do not understand how they cannot answer this by themselves! They don’t find the conclusion by themselves and they feel obliged to ask me such a thing. It's incredible! So you see, there are still some who hesitate. This is unbelievable!

And that, you will see, will be mandatory for those who have left us. For the FSSP, for Dom Gerard, even if they never say the New Rite themselves, even if they have our convictions, they will be obliged, to consider the New Rite with the same value as the traditional rite! In practice, when they will receive the priests who will come to see them, they will be obliged to let them say their Mass and tell them: "No problem. But of course, say your Mass." This is fatal! They cannot do otherwise. Look at the cohabitation of the two rites with Father Lafargue! In Paris there, with Father Veuillet! And beware! Father Lafargue and Father Veuillet must not go tell the others that their mass is bad or say: "you must come with me, you must come with us." It is well marked in the contracts. The two Rites are valid, do not criticize ... So, this is not possible. It is impossible otherwise. They are trapped!]]> Extract from the conference of April 11th, 1990, given in Écône by His Excellency, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre

on the Oath of fidelity to the positions of the SSPX. (Part II, about the N.O.M)

Taken from here [adapted, emphasis mine].

So, concerning the Rite of the Mass, you have three small articles on it:

"I admit that the Masses celebrated according to the new rite are not all invalid, in view of the bad translations, of [its] ambiguity ..."

You have on that subject some explanations from the book of Mr. Salleron, those are in my opinion, probably the best ones which were given and the most complete. He really made a study on Novus Ordo. It's hard to do it more perfectly and more completely then what he did very courageously. He is not afraid to say in which way the Novus Ordo is equivocal. There are three chapters, one after the other, which show that it is equivocal and it is clear that the Novus Ordo favors heresy. For those reasons, the Novus Ordo is a failure. There are three chapters which are very well written for us now.

Also, his whole analysis of the Novus Ordo and the whole history with all very well studied documents are really enlightening. If someone is still adhering to the Novus Ordo after having read that book, it is because he will never understand anything. Besides, that is why I brought it with me to the Holy Office. And then, when they talked with me about the Novus Ordo they interrogated me. “So concerning the Novus Ordo; how is it that you say some rather serious things about it?” So, I can assure you they asked me questions. It's shocking... “Do you maintain that a faithful Catholic can think and affirm that a sacramental Rite, especially the one of the Mass, approved and promulgated by the Pope, can be nonconforming with the Catholic faith or favor heresy?” I said: “Well here! You are holding the book. It’s not even my words, you see! But I agree absolutely with what he says: equivocal Mass, Mass favoring heresy ...”

So, I also advise you to have this in your library, this book by Salleron, and to give it to the people who are hesitant. “But, even so, [in] the Novus Ordo, we know priests who are brave, who are good and who are trying say it well etc.…” Read this! You will see! It is the Novus Ordo in itself! It is not the priest who is saying it. It is not because he says it piously or anything that the New Rite changes. It is not because it changes anything in the Rite of the Mass. It is obvious that this new Rite is a Rite that has been made only to draw us closer to the Protestants! That is clear! Finally, clear!

On this subject, reread also the article by Father Boyer in the supplement of the Catholic Theological Dictionary. After the table of contents, there are a few articles and in particular a very long article by Father Boyer who was my teacher at the Gregorian, who is now dead, and who was very highly regarded, a man of value who was, for some time, Secretary of the Secretariat for Christian unity. Basically, I think he was named in this Secretariat to give a slightly more traditional image and to give some confidence to the people. As you know, Father Boyer was a respected man, highly regarded in Roman circles and among teachers. He wrote a long article on ecumenism, an article very well documented where he quotes some phrases of Pope Paul VI requesting that we go as far as possible in suppressing everything that can hinder the Protestants in our ceremonies, excluding, obviously, what might be contrary to the Faith. But, I do not see how we can change the texts of our Mass and diminish them without harming the Faith? It is not possible! The Mass is everything! Once we remove what bothers the Protestants, how can we say that we are not going to touch the Faith? It is contradictory. They are unbelievable orders, and that is literally written by Father Boyer. So what do you want to do?

"And that's why I never will celebrate the Mass according to the New Rite, even under threat of ecclesiastical penalties and I will never advise anyone positively to participate actively in such a mass."

Because people are still asking us those questions: “I have not the Mass of St. Pius V on Sunday, and there is a Mass said by a priest that I know well, a holy man, so, wouldn’t be better to go to the Mass of this priest, even if it is the New Mass but said with piety instead of retaining myself?”

No! That's not true! This is not true! Because this Rite is bad! Is bad, is bad. This is the reason why this rite is bad, [it] is poisoned! It is a Rite poisoned! Mr. Salleron says it very well here: "It is not a choice between two rites that would be good! This is a choice between a Catholic Rite and a rite practically, neighboring the Protestantism!” Its harm our Faith, the Catholic Faith!

So, it is out of question to encourage people to go to Mass in the New Rite, because slowly, even without realizing it, they end up ecumenist! It’s strange, but it's like that. It is a fact. Then, ask them questions on ecumenism, on what they think of the relations with other religions and you will see! They are all ecumenist. For the priest himself, the fact of saying this [New] Mass and celebrating it in a constant manner, even without thinking about anything, about its origin, or why it was made, turns him and the people who assist to it ecumenist. And, if we are asking them about ecumenism, their answer will be: “But of course! We can be saved in all religions, it's obvious! This is the New Mass, the Novus Ordo Missae.

Of course, that's why it is said: “in a positive manner to participate actively at such a Mass." But we can eventually, for reasons, as it is written in Canon Law like Orthodox ceremonies, assist passively. For a wedding, parent’s funerals or things like that, where we feel obliged to be present and we cannot do otherwise, we assist passively. We don’t receive Communion, we are not participating in the Mass, but we are doing it more out of politeness towards the people who assist to it, than for assisting at the sacrifice of the Mass. Those are conditions that are already mentioned in the Canon Law, the old Canon Law. But attending to [the Novus Ordo] in order to replace Sunday Mass … No! It is better to stay home reading and going once a month. Make the effort to go once a month and do 100 km if necessary, to attend the Catholic Mass! Like in the missions, we were visiting our faithful [in Africa] three times a year. We could not do more! That was the average. This didn’t mean that they were bad Christians. They could not do it otherwise. It is not an impossible thing. So we say: "But am I not doing a grave sin by not going to Mass?” Not at that Mass! It does not oblige under pain of grave sin. We are never forced to do an act that tends to diminish our faith. It's not possible. God cannot force us to do an act like this. On the other hand, we are seriously obliged to do everything possible to attend the Mass of St. Pius V, the Catholic Mass. There, the obligation remains, but not for a rite that is almost Protestant. On the contrary, there is an obligation not to go.

I'm a little surprised, you know. Sometimes, I receive a lot of requests for consultations from our priests who are in the priories and some are asking me: “What should one reply to a person who says he cannot have the Mass of St. Pius V and who believes that he is under the obligation to go to a Mass of the New Rite, said by a good priest, a serious priest who offers all the guarantees almost of holiness? etc. “But, I do not understand how they cannot answer this by themselves! They don’t find the conclusion by themselves and they feel obliged to ask me such a thing. It's incredible! So you see, there are still some who hesitate. This is unbelievable!

And that, you will see, will be mandatory for those who have left us. For the FSSP, for Dom Gerard, even if they never say the New Rite themselves, even if they have our convictions, they will be obliged, to consider the New Rite with the same value as the traditional rite! In practice, when they will receive the priests who will come to see them, they will be obliged to let them say their Mass and tell them: "No problem. But of course, say your Mass." This is fatal! They cannot do otherwise. Look at the cohabitation of the two rites with Father Lafargue! In Paris there, with Father Veuillet! And beware! Father Lafargue and Father Veuillet must not go tell the others that their mass is bad or say: "you must come with me, you must come with us." It is well marked in the contracts. The two Rites are valid, do not criticize ... So, this is not possible. It is impossible otherwise. They are trapped!]]> <![CDATA[Archbishop Lefebvre 1978: Our Lord Has Overcome the World]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=3973 Wed, 13 Jul 2022 10:50:40 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=3973 The Angelus [Emphasis mine]- March 2012

Our Lord Has Overcome the World
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre

Sermon given on Easter Sunday, March 26, 1978, Ecône, Switzerland

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

“Confidite, nolite timere, ego vinci mundum.” It is Our Lord who leaves us these words before embarking upon the road of His Passion and Death: “Have confidence, fear not, I have overcome the world.” And, in fact, Our Lord has overcome the world, the world such as St. John describes it: “What is the world,” he asks, “but the concupiscentia oculorum, concupiscentia carnis, superbia vitae.” What does that mean? Riches, honors, the delights and pleasures of the flesh—that is what the world is. And Our Lord has overcome the world!

It suffices to contemplate Our Lord attached to His Cross, covered with blood, crowned with thorns, His side opened, to see that Our Lord has truly conquered the world: The world of riches—is anyone poorer than Our Lord upon His Cross? The world of honors—is there anyone more humble than Our Lord dying as one condemned by common law? Finally, the concupiscence of the flesh—is there a better example of sacrifice, of suffering, of sorrow, and of lacerations of the flesh than Our Lord covered with blood upon His Cross? Indeed, Our Lord has overcome the world: what the world loved, Our Lord scorned. And why did Our Lord scorn these things? In order to love! To love His Father, to love God, because one cannot serve two masters; one cannot love the world and love God. And Our Lord upon the Cross died of love: He died of love for His Father, He died of love for God, and His outstretched arms and His opened Heart reveal to us that He died of love for His neighbor as well! There is, therefore, a very great lesson in the victory of Our Lord over the world.

And because He has overcome the world, it had to follow as well that He win the victory over sin. For that which is at the root of this deviation in which our souls are born and which we call the world, all of that comes to us from original sin, and Our Lord by His Cross has won the victory over sin. Until then, man had not been able to attain Heaven; henceforth, by the Royal Way of the Cross, Heaven is opened, souls can now follow Our Lord and go up to Heaven. Sin is overcome! Sin is overcome by the blood and water which flowed from the side of Our Lord, and which are going to take form in all the Sacraments which Our Lord is going to leave to us, and which will give and apply to us His blood. In Baptism, particularly: by all the souls which from now on after the death of Our Lord will be baptized, souls which will be delivered from original sin and will be able to aspire towards Heaven, to follow Our Lord. And Our Lord has not only delivered us from original sin, but he delivers us as well from our personal sins by the Sacrament of Penance, by the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, and by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—Our Lord truly frees us from our sins!

Freedom from Sin

Nevertheless, are we to think that, delivered from our sins, we may henceforth desist from combat, that there are no more spiritual exercises to realize in our souls? No. Our Lord could have just as well caused that the consequences of original sin vanish from our souls, and consequently removed us from all these false desires, these inordinate desires of the world. Our Lord, however, did not so will it. He willed, as St. Thomas says, that our life be spent in combat, in suffering, in trials, in temptations, in difficulties. Each one of us has his own little drama, his own big drama—the crisis of one’s spiritual life, the crisis of one’s interior life. Where do we stand vis-à-vis God, vis-à-vis Our Lord? Are our souls pure, are they full of grace? Are they loving of Our Lord, of our neighbor? Do we accomplish our duties, our duties of state? Are we obedient to the law of God, who asks us to love both God and our neighbor? Each of us must make it a point to know where he stands, and then fight! In a combat, when there is a truce, the superior officers confer among themselves and ask why a defeat took place in such a location, or they discern where the weak points of the enemy are located, so that when the combat is resumed, the victory may be won. And likewise with us, we must at times during our life recollect ourselves, make retreats, in order to know where we stand, how to battle, how to battle the enemy, and so carry off the victory with Our Lord. It is capital that we win the victory! It is essential that we fight!

For if Our Lord has overcome the world, if He has overcome sin, He has also overcome the devil. And nevertheless, we witness everyday the bad influences of the spirits which surround us, as St. Paul says, in the very air about us, and which seek our perdition. And, assuredly, Our Lord has truly conquered the devil because before His Passion, before His Death, before His Resurrection the devil reigned over souls from their interior. He had a hold over souls, and he still has it when souls are not baptized, as evidenced by the fact that we must pronounce the exorcisms to drive away the devil from souls. But henceforth, thanks to the Passion of Our Lord, thanks to His victory—and Our Lord Himself has affirmed it—nunc eiicietur princeps huius mundi, ”now the prince of this world will be cast out.” Indeed, he is cast out of souls who are baptized, it is true, but he still has an influence in this world. Externally, he can tempt us, he can cause tension in our life by every sort of method—you know it well—by every means which this world puts at his disposition. Yet, nonetheless, his defeat is assured. It is up to us to battle, to keep watch, to keep an
eye open to all the diabolical influences which surround us, in order
to preserve our souls for Our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Celebration of the Resurrection

Finally, Our Lord has won the victory over death, for death is the consequence of sin. And, thus, today we celebrate His Resurrection, the consequence of Our Lord’s victory. We are assured that we ourselves will one day have the joy of the resurrection if only we follow Our Lord, if we love Him, as did the Blessed Virgin Mary as she stood at the foot of the Cross. This phrase which I am going to cite for you is located in the Office of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows, on the day of the feast: Dilectus meus candidus et rubicundus....totus spirat amorem—“My Beloved, pure and at the same time rosy (by the blood which flows) in His entirety breathes forth love”; caput inclinatum, “His Head inclined”; manus extensae, “His Hands extended”; pectus apertum, “His Heart opened.” Yes, let us contemplate Our Lord Jesus Christ upon His Cross just as the Blessed Virgin Mary did, and let us ask Our Lord to give us this love. But in order to have this love, we must sacrifice, we must struggle. Every aspect of the Cross proves it to us. If we do not battle, if we remain passive, if we fall asleep, then the enemy will be all-powerful and will come once more to gain admission into our souls. And, alas, my dear brethren, today this is the great drama of the Church.

The Drama of the Church Today

This victory which Our Lord has won and which manifests itself today on this feast of the Resurrection comprises necessarily a gigantic combat against the world, against death, against sin. Our Lord has triumphed, but this combat continues, and the entire history of the Church is but the history of the vicissitudes of this combat. And today, are we not in an hour of darkness where the devil reigns once again, where the spirit of the world is everywhere and permeates everywhere? Are we not heading for death, for eternal death? And, alas, in the Church itself they no longer will to fight; one must not talk of combat anymore, no more talking of penance, no more talking of renouncement, no more talking of mortification. Such is the great drama which the Church is undergoing today—they have laid down their arms. Thus the devil finds himself all-powerful, because they do not fight him anymore. The day will soon come when they will say that the devil no longer exists, that the world is not really as bad as one would make it, that this world is full of good intentions! But we know that to be the instrument of the devil to pervert us. If the world has hated Our Lord, as Our Lord Himself said, the world will hate you as well. Thus, if we ourselves happen to love the world, the world will love us, and as a result we will separate ourselves from Our Lord Jesus Christ. Yet today it seems that one is full of complacency for this world—even clerics, even bishops! Yesterday I was reading a declaration made by a cardinal on the “rights of man”—for from now on it is no longer a question of the Decalogue which tells us to love God and our neighbor, it is no longer a question of speaking about our duties to God, Our Lord, and our neighbor—no, it’s only a question of the “rights of man!” And these “rights of man,” which are reputedly necessary for human dignity, what do they amount to? To the sharing of the goods of this world! It is necessary to share the goods of this world—there you have what the “rights of man” amount to.

Is that what Our Lord represents to us upon His Cross? Our Lord requires us precisely to scorn the riches of this world, and here you have it that those who ought to teach men to despise these riches, to love the spirit of poverty even if they be rich, to live as poor, poor in spirit, detached from the goods of this world, behold, those who ought to preach these things and preach Our Lord Jesus Christ think only of the allotment of the goods of this world, and thereby arouse once again envy in the hearts of men. Always more, always more than our neighbor, thus fostering jealousy of those who possess a few goods and implanting in the hearts of men this division, this class struggle, which is precisely what the devil wants in order to destroy the world and destroy souls! And will there not be in Brazil this year a meeting of all the delegates of the episcopal conferences to talk of nothing but the “rights of man?” Where is this human dignity? They talk of the “rights of man for human dignity,” but to what does it refer? Human dignity consists in loving the truth and loving the good. To the degree that we separate ourselves from the Truth, to the degree that we remove ourselves from the Good, we are no longer worthy of dignity, we shall no longer be worthy of Heaven. Would the devils still be worthy of dignity? Such are the profound errors which have actually entered into the minds of even those who should preach the truth and who henceforth are prophets of error.

The Royal Way of Heaven

And therefore we must, my dear brethren, maintain the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, meditate every day the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and put it everywhere: in our rooms, in our homes, at the crossing of our streets. Let the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ reign, and let it be everywhere before our eyes, so that we may have this continual lesson which Our Lord Jesus Christ gives us in such an admirable way! He who is rich because He is the Creator of all things, and all things belong to Him, has willed to live poor and die poor. He who should have had all the honors of the world, at whose feet all humanity should have come and prostrated itself to render Him honor and glory, died as an evildoer! He who possesses everything, and could have offered Himself all the legitimate pleasures which the world can offer, willed to perish bathed in His blood! That is the example which Our Lord Jesus Christ gives us if we desire to live truly as Christians. That is what you, my dear friends, will preach in the future: the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, just as did St. Paul. What does he preach? Jesus, and Jesus crucified. You will preach Jesus crucified for the good of souls. And if you do not, you deceive those to whom you are sent, and you will not lead them to Heaven. And it is for this reason that we must maintain firmly the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and as a consequence His Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It is because the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ is no longer honored, and no longer honored in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in particular, that souls are being lost, that souls are disoriented and no longer know where to find the way to Heaven. The road to Heaven is in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; it is in the Sacrifice of Our Lord; it is in the Cross of Our Lord who pours out His blood every day upon our altars. It is by this Cross that we shall go to Heaven; there is no other road, there is no other way of salvation but the Cross of Jesus, who is the Royal Way of Heaven—Via Regalis Crucis et Caeli. That, my dearly beloved brethren, is what we must maintain at all cost.

Let us ask the Blessed Virgin Mary to teach us the Cross. She will do so; she will tell us what is truly for us the road of Heaven, and likewise will welcome us when the hour of our death arrives if we have followed Our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us ask also on this day that minds be enlightened, that the minds of priests, of those who must preach the truth, be enlightened by the Holy Ghost in order that they truly return to this preaching of the Cross, which is the throne of glory of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.]]> The Angelus [Emphasis mine]- March 2012

Our Lord Has Overcome the World
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre

Sermon given on Easter Sunday, March 26, 1978, Ecône, Switzerland

The Sermon of His Excellency Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
at Martigny, Switzerland

9 December 1984

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

My dear brethren,

Before giving you a few words of edification on this day which is still under the halo of the Immaculate Conception and of St. Pius X, may I make an allusion to the few lines which were published these last days by the local bishop, Mgr. Schwery. You were asked not to come to this Holy Mass; you were told that by coming here, you were disobeying the local bishop and that you were disobeying the Supreme Pontiff. These are very grievous utterances and absolutely without foundation. It is true that we have been undergoing a persecution, but this persecution has no foundation; it is inspired by a spirit which is not Catholic, a spirit of novelties, a spirit which is more like Luther's than like the spirit of the Catholic Faith. It is because we faithfully and integrally hold on to the Tradition of the Church that we are persecuted.

So I ask you: is it right that you be persecuted in such a way? Is it right that we be chased by such hostility? As proof of the error of those who continue to persecute us, I have but one example to give you: You have just seen, just a while ago, all these seminarians and priests in procession; if this is not of the Church, then there has never been a Catholic Church! What else are we doing than praying as we have been asked to pray for all our life? I am celebrating nothing else than the Mass of my ordination, and yourselves, you are assisting at the Mass at which you have been assisting all your life! This Mass is the same at which your parents, your grandparents, your ancestors, assisted, and now they have been sanctified and are in heaven. All the saints have been sanctified by this holy Mass, by these sacraments, by the predication which we are preaching.

We are obliged to conclude that those who are persecuting in such a way have no longer a Catholic spirit; they have given up the Catholic spirit because they persecute not so much ourselves but all that we represent. Now, we represent the holy Tradition of the Church of twenty centuries—twenty centuries of Christianity, twenty centuries of the sanctification of souls. Those who criticize twenty centuries of Catholicism no longer have a Catholic spirit! I wanted to say that because the utterances of the local bishop are so injurious, so unjust, that I could not be silent in the face of such an injustice—an injustice which reaches not only my own person—that would not be much—but reaches also all our priests, all our seminarians, and yourselves. Therefore we protest, and we say: "Let us be judged! Let it be judged whether we are like those Catholics who have gone before us, especially like St. Pius X, for instance, the last Pope canonized whom we celebrate today, or not!" If St. Pius X were living today, he would heartily approve us, he would bless us, he would encourage us, he would hold us up as an example to be followed! But since some innovators, who are more protestant than Catholic, have invaded the Church, they have, of course, been condemning those who maintain Tradition. But let us be faithful, my dear brethren. Let us have no fear at all. Let us pray for those who persecute us. Let us ask God to open their eyes that they may become aware of the subversion which reigns in the Church today, so that they also may find again the way of Tradition and the way of the reconstruction of the Church as we wish to do, under the protection of the Virgin Mary and of St. Pius X.

Yesterday, during Vespers, we sang the antiphon of the Magnificat: "hodie, sine ulla peccati labe concepta est Maria, hodie contritum est ab ea caput sepentis antiqui: today, without any sin, without any stain of sin, the Virgin Mary was conceived; today the serpent's, the devil's, head was crushed by Mary!" My dear brethren, these are truths which we must always have before our eyes, which are as the foundation of our faith. They are the expression of two essential dogmas of our Christian life.

That the Most Blessed Virgin Mary was immaculate in Her conception, that She had not the stain of Original Sin, and that we celebrate the Immaculate Conception as a great hope, an immense hope, a light coming from heaven and which will lead us who were in darkness to heaven, is because all of us have the stain of Original Sin and all its consequences. Thanks to the Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, thanks to the merits of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we received the Sacrament of Baptism and by Baptism, the guilt of Original Sin was cleansed from our souls; however, we remain sick. We remain with the influences of Original Sin. We are sick persons. We admit this just before receiving Holy Communion; you will repeat it three times in a few minutes: "Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but just say the word and my soul shall be healed," and you will repeat three times: ". . . and my soul shall be healed." Why healed? It is because it is sick. Yes, we are sick persons, the consequences of Original Sin are our sickness, they do remain. We are sick in our soul because we have all the bad tendencies which push us to sin. St. Thomas calls that "fomes peccati"—there are these tendencies to sin which are still in us, though we received the grace of baptism, though we struggle, though we receive the Sacrament of Penance and the Sacrament of Holy Communion, we remain with this tendency to sin. Therefore we need the Doctor of our soul! The consequences of Original Sin are present. They are also manifested by sickness . . . if we would not have Original Sin, if we would not be one with our first parents by the flesh which we received from our parents, then we would not be sick, there would be no illness. Our Lord was never ill during His life; the Most Blessed Virgin Mary did not suffer from any sickness during her life, but He chose to die, to die for our Redemption, and the Virgin Mary chose to die to imitate her Divine Son, but She was not subject to death because She did not have the stain of Original Sin; this is why She was assumed into heaven with Her body. She rose from the dead because She did not have the consequences of Original Sin.

Yes, we are sick, and we must convince ourselves of this, in order to have an immense desire in our soul to be healed, to come back into the Divine Order, to do the Lord's will. The remedy is Our Lord Jesus Christ, it is His Cross, it is His Blood, it is His Passion, it is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, it is the Holy Victim immolated on the Cross which we receive in Holy Communion and which heals our soul. In the prayer just before Communion, we admit this: "ad medelam percipiendam—may we receive it as a remedy: O Lord, come in us so that we may receive the remedy which we need for our souls." Such is the teaching of the Church. Thus, knowing this, we must accept sufferings, penance, to make reparation for our sins, for our faults, in order to put our soul back in the order willed by God. And we are reminded of this by the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. O how blessed the Virgin Mary is! Without any stain! Without any stain! "Sine macula!"

The second dogma to which the Antiphon of the Magnificat makes allusion is that the Virgin Mary has crushed the serpent's head, has crushed Satan's head! This truth is recalled in an admirable way by St. John in the Apocalypse. In the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse, St. John described the signs of heaven: "And behold a sign, a woman shining as the sun, with the moon under her feet, and with a crown of twelve stars, appeared in heaven." It was the Virgin Mary described in the Apocalypse. And immediately after another sign appeared to St. John: the dragon! The red dragon, horrible to see with his horns, his many heads, and it strove to devour the child who was to be born of the woman and it ran after her trying to devour this child. Then, at this moment, St. John described the battle which occurred in heaven, between St. Michael and his Angels, those who followed him, and the Dragon with those who followed the Dragon; and he said that the Dragon drew with him, by his tail, the third part of the stars, probably signifying that a third of the angels unfortunately followed the revolt of the Dragon who, said St. John, is called the Devil, Satan.

Then a frightful war was waged in heaven and St. Michael triumphed "by the Blood of the Lamb." By the Blood of the Lamb; it was the Blood of the Lamb which gave victory to St. Michael and his Angels over the Dragon, who was thrown down to earth. Then a canticle arose: "Blessed be the heavens, blessed are the elect of heaven who henceforth are delivered from Satan and from all his followers! But woe to the earth and to the sea which received Satan, because Satan is in an enormous fury, because he has been thrown from the heights of heaven down to earth" and he knows, said the Apocalypse, that he has but a short time, "modicum tempus," a very short time is left to him. Therefore, he will work and strive to destroy the child of the woman. He ran after Mary and from his mouth a filthy river came and inundated the earth so that the woman and child disappear in these filthy waters. But the earth came to Mary's aid, and an abyss was opened and this filthy river was absorbed by the earth. Then Mary and Jesus were saved. But now Satan's rage is turned against the children of the Virgin and against those who observe the Commandments of God and the Commandments of Jesus. This is what the Apocalypse says.

Now, my dear brethren, we are constantly witnessing this struggle, this action continues. Yes, the Devil is working here below and Mary continues crushing his head. Unfortunately, the powers of Hell being loosed have a considerable influence here below. If the Devil would lead astray only enemies of the Church! But, alas, he succeeds in penetrating into the very heart of the flock of Our Lord; he succeeds in penetrating into the interior of the Church, as St. Pius X said. And thus members of the Church, and often members of the clergy, let themselves be corrupted by the false ideas which Satan spreads in the world. This is what we witness today, my dear brethren! The false ideas of the world destroying the Church from within, corrupting the realization of Catholicism; these false ideas being spread in the Church. And one of these false modern ideas is ecumenism, it is religious freedom, it is the Rights of Man, it is the revolt of man against God: freedom of thought, freedom to choose one's religion, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience—"liberties" which have been condemned many, many times by all the Popes—by Pius IX, by Leo XIII, by St. Pius X, by Pius XI and by Pius XII. They warned the faithful, and all the bishops, against these ideas: "Beware!" Leo XIII called this "the New Right," a New Right which rose against the Right of the Church, a right of secularism, a right of atheism, a right to forget God, to persecute God, Our Lord Jesus Christ. All this has been condemned by the Popes and now we are witnessing these ideas rising again since Vatican II.

The facts are before our eyes: these dialogues with error. They would like to have the same place given to error as to Truth, the same honor given to error as to Truth, the same honor given to vice as to virtue. We see it in the laws; all the laws of the states, especially the atheistic and socialist states, put vice and virtue on the same level. We could say they only praise vice and legalize it: abortions, divorces, who knows what else? We can quote many laws which are contrary to the law of the Good Lord. This revolt of the world against God is a terrible thing, supported by Satan—supported by the Dragon and by all his disciples.

Now, instead of doing as the Virgin Mary, crushing Satan's head—not dialoguing with him!—what was it that lost Eve? It was dialogue with Satan! She held a dialogue with Satan, and she was lost! When one dialogues with Satan, when one dialogues with evil, when one dialogues with error, one is lost! And this is what we are witnessing today. One must fight against error; one must proclaim the Truth; one must fight against vice and practice virtue; one must crush Satan's head at the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary!

But, today, dialogue is in vogue in the world. I will give you an example. I just came back from South America. Well, the president of Colombia who is supposedly a Catholic president, and who was elected by the Conservatives, by what could be called the "right," well, this conservative president, for the two years that he has been president of his country has himself established a dialogue with the enemies of his country, with those whom they call guerillas. And what good results have come from two years of dialogue? The ten to fifteen thousand armed men who were in the guerilla movement two years ago now number seventy thousand! The guerilla movement now possesses 70,000 armed men who are linked to Moscow, China and Cuba. Here is a country which can pass to the domination of Communism because of the dialogue of a man of the right! Here is the result of this dialogue: he [the president] has permitted the young guerillas to attend the universities, even granting them scholarships to attend. As a result the universities are communist. I don't know if you realize the danger the modern world is running of communist implantation. Colombia is a base from which the communists would be able to have a command upon the Pacific, on the Gulf of Mexico and on the Sea of Antilles, and on all of South America. They know very well that if they take this country, they have all of South America before them, as they have done in Ethiopia—it is a similar situation.

So, these are the consequences of dialogue! One cannot dialogue with communism; one must fight them. This is what Pius XI said: "Communism is intrinsically evil." One does not discuss anything with something intrinsically evil.

The Blessed Virgin Mary gives us the example; St. Pius X gives us the example. St. Pius X fought against modern errors, fought against Modernism, fought against "Le Sillon," fought against all the errors which cause decay in the Church.

We have two examples, my dear brethren: the Most Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Pius X. I think both had the same desire: could the Blessed Virgin Mary desire anything other than the Kingdom of her Divine Son? "Instaurare omnia in Christo—to restore all things in Christ"—this was the desire of St. Pius X, to put everything in the hands of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This, my dear brethren, must be our desire. You were singing it a few minutes ago when we came into this wonderful assembly hall where so many have come; where you have prayed so much during this holy night of vigil. Yes, you were singing: "Let the Kingdom of Jesus Christ Our Lord come! Let Him reign over us!"

While the world proclaims its errors, let us pray that Jesus Christ Our Lord reign. Let this be our ideal; let us continue our fight; let us be firm in the restoration of the Kingdom of Our Lord Jesus Christ, first within ourselves, in our families, in our cities. Let us be courageous and undertake a crusade! At a time when we see the situation of the world truly under a light which could lead to pessimism if we do not look at it supernaturally, at the same time we are witnessing that everywhere some wonderful resistance is arising. Souls are understanding the danger, gathering themselves, uniting themselves to pray and to pray especially to the Blessed Virgin Mary. This is what will save us! So, today, let us make the resolution, with St. Pius X, to go to the Virgin Mary and beg her to come down to us and crush the Serpent's head so that her Divine Son may reign.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fcatholicsay.com%2Fwp-co...f=1&nofb=1]

]]> The Angelus - January 1985

The Sermon of His Excellency Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
at Martigny, Switzerland

9 December 1984

]]> <![CDATA[Archbishop Lefebvre 1989: Sermon given on the Feast of Christ the King]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=2838 Sun, 31 Oct 2021 12:02:31 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=2838 Sermon of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre for the Feast of Christ the King
October 29, 1989
Dublin, Ireland

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

My dear brethren,

It is a great pleasure for me to meet you again in this magnificent church. Four years ago I was here to bless this church and now I am here for the Feast of Jesus Christ, the King.

We must thank God for the many blessings, many graces, He gives you in this church by the ministry of your beloved priests. How many graces, how many blessings you receive by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, by the Sacrament of Holy Communion, by the Sacrament of Penance! We must thank God.

I am very happy to celebrate this Sacrifice of the Mass this day of the Feast of Jesus Christ, the King. He is really King. In 1925 Pope Pius XI wrote a magnificent encyclical letter, Quas Primas, on Christ the King. I was then a seminarian in Rome and I remember very well when the Pope published this beautiful encyclical.

It is true that Jesus Christ is a King. He is King by nature because He is true God and by reason of the union of the divine nature with the human nature. Jesus Christ is really King. He is also King by conquest, by His Cross. By His sacrifice on the Cross, Jesus Christ became King of all souls. He gave His life and blood to save all souls. Therefore He is King of all souls. But you know, now, in our time, many refuse to acknowledge the Kingship of Jesus Christ. They are opposed to the principle of the Kingship of Jesus Christ. It is a great sadness when we know that after the Second Vatican Council the Vatican authorities requested many Catholic countries to abandon the idea of the Kingship of Jesus Christ as they did in your beloved country, Ireland.

I remember when I visited Ireland many years ago, I met your great President, Eamonn De Valera. He was a great Catholic. He certainly would refuse to say that Jesus Christ is not King of Ireland. But after the Council the Vatican authorities requested from the President of Ireland to abandon the principle of the Kingship of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is no more publicly acclaimed King of Ireland; it is the same in many Catholic countries. The Vatican asked, for example, Italy, Colombia and other countries to abandon the principle that the Catholic religion is the public religion of the State. Why?

Jesus Christ is King of all countries, of all men; so, we must remain in, and profess this Catholic Faith. And we, personally, are very happy to celebrate this great Feast of Jesus Christ, the King, because we have this Catholic belief in the Kingship of Jesus Christ over the whole world, the universal, social Kingship of Jesus Christ. We need to do everything possible to extend this Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our souls, in our bodies, in our families, in our countries. We must extend the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our minds by the practice of the Catholic Faith. The Catholic Faith is the obedience to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our souls. We must extend this Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our wills, by following the laws of Jesus Christ, and in our families, so that He rules all the Catholic faithful.

We must recognize the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and we must also labor to extend the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our countries. You know that in Protestant countries, the Protestant religion is acknowledged as the public religion. For example, in Norway and Sweden the public religion is the Protestant religion. Why, then, do Catholics not have the same rights in Catholic countries? It is extraordinary. How is it possible that the Vatican has asked Catholic countries not to profess themselves, publicly, Catholic, but only privately? That is incredible. I told this to Pope John Paul II in my audience with him [1978]. That isn't Catholic teaching. The teaching of the Catholic Church is that we must do all in our power to extend the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the social Kingdom of Jesus Christ. So, by this change in the Church, many Catholic countries are abandoning the law of Jesus Christ Christian law. The law permitting abortion and contraception is a law opposed to Catholic families. We must pray, my dear brethren, we must pray and ask God, by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that the Kingdom of Jesus Christ will return, will come back in our cities, in our countries.

In heaven, Jesus Christ is King and we pray in the Our father that “Thy kingdom come.” That is a true Catholic prayer.

I hope that you are happy to have taken the decision to remain true Catholics because this is the aim of our Society, of our reaction against the errors of the Conciliar Church. Our reaction is only a Catholic reaction. There is no other explanation for our difficulties with modern Rome. It is because we have taken this decision to remain true Catholics, to keep the true Catholic Faith. We have never changed and cannot change because the Catholic Faith is always the same. During centuries and centuries, the Catholic Faith did not change. It is those who change the Catholic Faith who are the real schismatics, who are heretics. Not we. With the grace of God, we remain true Catholics. We keep all the articles of the Creed, all the seven Sacraments, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass without any change. That is the will of God, of Jesus Christ. That is the true Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our souls, in our families.

We must thank God for the grace to remain true Catholics. It is very important in order to save our souls and the souls of our children.

Today we must pray to Our Lord Jesus Christ, we must pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary to remain true Catholics and to do everything possible to become saints. We must come to church frequently, pray in our church, receive the graces of the sacraments in order to become saints, to sanctify our souls and to go to heaven with all the members of our families and all those who kept the Catholic Faith here on earth and now enjoy the happiness of heaven.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.]]> Sermon of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre for the Feast of Christ the King
October 29, 1989
Dublin, Ireland

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

My dear brethren,

It is a great pleasure for me to meet you again in this magnificent church. Four years ago I was here to bless this church and now I am here for the Feast of Jesus Christ, the King.

We must thank God for the many blessings, many graces, He gives you in this church by the ministry of your beloved priests. How many graces, how many blessings you receive by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, by the Sacrament of Holy Communion, by the Sacrament of Penance! We must thank God.

I am very happy to celebrate this Sacrifice of the Mass this day of the Feast of Jesus Christ, the King. He is really King. In 1925 Pope Pius XI wrote a magnificent encyclical letter, Quas Primas, on Christ the King. I was then a seminarian in Rome and I remember very well when the Pope published this beautiful encyclical.

It is true that Jesus Christ is a King. He is King by nature because He is true God and by reason of the union of the divine nature with the human nature. Jesus Christ is really King. He is also King by conquest, by His Cross. By His sacrifice on the Cross, Jesus Christ became King of all souls. He gave His life and blood to save all souls. Therefore He is King of all souls. But you know, now, in our time, many refuse to acknowledge the Kingship of Jesus Christ. They are opposed to the principle of the Kingship of Jesus Christ. It is a great sadness when we know that after the Second Vatican Council the Vatican authorities requested many Catholic countries to abandon the idea of the Kingship of Jesus Christ as they did in your beloved country, Ireland.

I remember when I visited Ireland many years ago, I met your great President, Eamonn De Valera. He was a great Catholic. He certainly would refuse to say that Jesus Christ is not King of Ireland. But after the Council the Vatican authorities requested from the President of Ireland to abandon the principle of the Kingship of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is no more publicly acclaimed King of Ireland; it is the same in many Catholic countries. The Vatican asked, for example, Italy, Colombia and other countries to abandon the principle that the Catholic religion is the public religion of the State. Why?

Jesus Christ is King of all countries, of all men; so, we must remain in, and profess this Catholic Faith. And we, personally, are very happy to celebrate this great Feast of Jesus Christ, the King, because we have this Catholic belief in the Kingship of Jesus Christ over the whole world, the universal, social Kingship of Jesus Christ. We need to do everything possible to extend this Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our souls, in our bodies, in our families, in our countries. We must extend the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our minds by the practice of the Catholic Faith. The Catholic Faith is the obedience to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our souls. We must extend this Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our wills, by following the laws of Jesus Christ, and in our families, so that He rules all the Catholic faithful.

We must recognize the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and we must also labor to extend the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our countries. You know that in Protestant countries, the Protestant religion is acknowledged as the public religion. For example, in Norway and Sweden the public religion is the Protestant religion. Why, then, do Catholics not have the same rights in Catholic countries? It is extraordinary. How is it possible that the Vatican has asked Catholic countries not to profess themselves, publicly, Catholic, but only privately? That is incredible. I told this to Pope John Paul II in my audience with him [1978]. That isn't Catholic teaching. The teaching of the Catholic Church is that we must do all in our power to extend the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the social Kingdom of Jesus Christ. So, by this change in the Church, many Catholic countries are abandoning the law of Jesus Christ Christian law. The law permitting abortion and contraception is a law opposed to Catholic families. We must pray, my dear brethren, we must pray and ask God, by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that the Kingdom of Jesus Christ will return, will come back in our cities, in our countries.

In heaven, Jesus Christ is King and we pray in the Our father that “Thy kingdom come.” That is a true Catholic prayer.

I hope that you are happy to have taken the decision to remain true Catholics because this is the aim of our Society, of our reaction against the errors of the Conciliar Church. Our reaction is only a Catholic reaction. There is no other explanation for our difficulties with modern Rome. It is because we have taken this decision to remain true Catholics, to keep the true Catholic Faith. We have never changed and cannot change because the Catholic Faith is always the same. During centuries and centuries, the Catholic Faith did not change. It is those who change the Catholic Faith who are the real schismatics, who are heretics. Not we. With the grace of God, we remain true Catholics. We keep all the articles of the Creed, all the seven Sacraments, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass without any change. That is the will of God, of Jesus Christ. That is the true Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our souls, in our families.

We must thank God for the grace to remain true Catholics. It is very important in order to save our souls and the souls of our children.

Today we must pray to Our Lord Jesus Christ, we must pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary to remain true Catholics and to do everything possible to become saints. We must come to church frequently, pray in our church, receive the graces of the sacraments in order to become saints, to sanctify our souls and to go to heaven with all the members of our families and all those who kept the Catholic Faith here on earth and now enjoy the happiness of heaven.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.]]> <![CDATA[Archbishop Lefebvre 1979: Sermon given on the Feast of Christ the King]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=2794 Tue, 26 Oct 2021 11:39:03 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=2794 Sermon of Archbishop Lefebvre - Feast of Christ the King - October 28, 1979

Taken from here.

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

My dear brethren,

In the magnificent Encyclical Quas Primas of His Holiness Pope Pius XI, instituting the Feast of Christ the King, the Pope explains why Our Lord Jesus Christ is truly King, and he gives two particular and profound reasons. There are indeed many scriptural proofs. We have just read the Gospel in which Our Lord Jesus Christ proclaims Himself King. There are many passages from the Psalms and in the New Testament which express this same quality of Our Lord Jesus Christ as King. But His Holiness Pius XI takes care to deepen our knowledge of the reasons of this royalty.

The first reason is what the Church calls the "hypostatic union," the union of the Divine Person of Our Lord with His human nature. Our Lord is King because He is God. Indeed, there are not two persons in Our Lord, there is not one Divine Person and one human person. There is only one person – the Divine Person who directly assumed a human soul and a human body without passing by the intermediary of a human person. Consequently, when we speak of Jesus Christ, we say the Person of Jesus Christ. Now, this person of Jesus is a Divine Person. Certainly, Jesus Christ is both God and man since He assumed a human soul and a human body. Thus, the human soul and the human body of Our Lord Jesus Christ have become so intimately united to God that they cannot be separated. It is the Person of Our Lord Jesus Christ which is entirely Divine, and by His Person, His Body and Soul are "deified."

Thus, Our Lord Jesus Christ as He presented Himself along the roads of Palestine, and even as He presented Himself as an infant in Bethlehem, is King. Not only does He possess the character of this royalty but also the Church teaches that by this union of God with human nature, with a soul and with a body, which He assumed, Our Lord Jesus Christ is essentially, by nature – Savior, Priest and King. He cannot be but Savior, for He alone may say that He is God. He alone is able to say that He is the Priest, the Pontiff – He who truly makes the link between heaven and earth – and also He alone is able to say that He is the King. He is not king according to the kingships of this world, that is to say, over a given territory and limited to the earth, to men. Indeed, Our Lord is King not only of the earth but also of heaven. This is the first profound reason for the royalty of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and of this we must be convinced in order to see Our Lord as King, our personal King. Our Lord Jesus Christ is our King.

But He is King for another reason as well. Pope Pius XI explains perceptively that Our Lord Jesus Christ is King by conquest. By what conquest?

It is because Our Lord Jesus Christ has conquered all by His Blood, by His Cross and by Calvary. Regnavit a ligno Deus, God has reigned from the wood, i.e., from the Cross, Our Lord has conquered all souls, whomsoever they may be, by right – a strict right. All souls since they are created by God, even if they live for only a moment here on earth, are, by right, subjects of Our Lord Jesus Christ because He conquered them by His Blood. He wants to save them. He desires to redeem them all by His Blood, His Divine Blood, in order to lead them to heaven. Yes, Our Lord, by His Precious Blood and by His Cross, is by right Our King. This is the very reason why in the early centuries after the peace of Constantine, when the Christians were officially able to present the Cross in their churches, in their chapels and in other places of worship, they usually represented Our Lord Jesus Christ as a crowned King; crowned with the crown of kings. Christ is surely our King and He is King by His Cross.

We must then consider the principles of this nature of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of this conquest which Jesus has made upon our hearts and our souls by His death upon the Cross. Is Our Lord Jesus Christ daily in practice, in all our actions, in all of our thoughts, truly our King? Pope Pius XI continues in his encyclical to describe the manner in which Our Lord must be our King.

He must be the King of our intellects and of our thoughts because He us the truth. Jesus Christ is the Truth, because He is God.

Is then Our Lord Jesus Christ truly King of our thoughts? Is it He who truly orients all of our thoughts, our reflections, our intellectual life, in the life of our Faith? Is it truly Our Lord Jesus Christ Who is the light of our intellects? Is He King of our wills?

He is the Law. If the Tablets of the Law were found in the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament, they represented precisely Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who today is found in our tabernacles. But today with a tremendous superiority have we the Law in our tabernacles, in our "arks of the covenant." It is no longer the cold stones of the Old Testament but rather it is Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself Who is the Law. The Word of God is the Law by Whom all has been made, in Whom all things have been created. He is the Law not only of souls, of minds, of wills, but He is the Law of all nature. All the laws which we discover in nature come from Our Lord Jesus Christ – come from the Word of God. It suffices to consider that all creatures follow with incomparable fidelity the laws of God, that they follow physical laws, chemical laws, and all the laws of vegetative nature, of animal nature. These laws are followed impeccably. And we, too, must follow in a diligent manner, in a free manner, the laws of God inscribed in our hearts. It is precisely due to our liberty that we must attach ourselves to this law which is the path of our happiness, the way to eternal life.

Man has turned away from this law.

Our Lord Jesus Christ must then be – must again become – the King of our wills and we must conform our wills to His Law, to His Law of love, to His Law of charity, to the Commandments which He has given us and which He Himself told us encompass all other Commandments: To love God and to love one's neighbors. Are not these two in fact one and the same Commandment? It is He Who tells us so. Do we then truly conform our wills to the law of Our Lord Jesus Christ? Is Jesus Christ truly King of our wills?

Finally, Jesus has to be, as Pope Pius XI tells us, the King of our hearts. Are our hearts truly attached to Our Lord Jesus Christ? Are we conscious of the fact that Our Lord Jesus Christ is our ALL – Omnia in omnibus? Jesus Christ is all and in things. It is He in ipso omnia constant as St. Paul says. In Him all is sustained, in Him we live, in Him we are and we act. It is this that St. Paul explains in his discourse to the Areopagite: "In ipso vivimus, in ipso movemur, in ipso sumus” – He holds all in His hand.

We must then wonder what the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph must have thought. I believe that there is an admirable example for us. If we truly desire that Jesus Christ be our King we must try to imagine what Nazareth must have been. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. What must Mary have thought of Jesus? What must Joseph have thought of Jesus? It is incredible! It is a great mystery, an impenetrable mystery of goodness, of the charity of God. To think that He permitted two creatures chosen by Him, to live with Him! For St. Joseph during thirty years, for the Blessed Virgin during thirty-three years, in the intimacy of Jesus, in the intimacy of Him Who is God. It is He without Whom neither Mary nor Joseph could speak, think, nor live. Mary bearing Jesus in her arms, bearing God in her arms! As the Gospel often says it was not she who was bearing Jesus but Jesus who was bearing her. For Jesus was much greater than she, for He is God. Just think what must have been in the soul, will and heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary living with Jesus, seeing Him with His young companions, seeing Him working with St. Joseph.

We also have the joy to live with Our Lord.

Even under the delicate envelope of her body, the Blessed Virgin Mary adored the Living God for she knew – she knew that the living God was in her womb. She knew this through by the Annunciation by the angel. And St. Joseph knew it perfectly as well.

We, too, know that we have the living Jesus in our tabernacles under the delicate Eucharistic species. Jesus is there! Not only do we have Him in our tabernacles, but moreover in a manner which I would say is almost more intimate than that of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of St. Joseph, when Our Lord gives Himself to us as our spiritual food.

Imagine, that truly in our bodies, in our hearts we bear Jesus – we bear God who sustains us, for without Him we would not be able to live nor exist nor say a single word nor even think a single thought. And we bear this God in the Holy Eucharist!

Let us ask Our Lord Jesus Christ when we receive Him in us that He be our King – that He may give us the thoughts of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of St. Joseph; that He may grant us the affections of the hearts of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph, these creatures whom He chose from all eternity to be His guardians, to be those with whom He was to live.

Ask them – ask Mary and Joseph – to help us live under the sweet Kingdom of Our Lord Jesus Christ. One day, we hope that we shall be in that Kingdom and that we shall see Him in His splendor and in His glory as we say so often when we recite the Angelus: ut per passionem ejus et crucem ad resurrectionis gloriam perducamur – in order that by His Passion and Cross we may be brought to the glory of His Resurrection.

Indeed, we also must pass now by the Passion and Cross of Jesus upon the earth in order that one day we may be able to join in the glory of His Resurrection, this glory which illuminates heaven, which is heaven, for God is heaven. That Our Lord Jesus Christ is heaven. In Him we will live in the grace of God by the grace of God. If we have Him as our King here on earth, then we shall have Him as our King for all eternity.

Beseech the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph today, not only for us, but for our families, for all those who surround us, that they may come to the light of Our Lord Jesus Christ, that they recognize evil, and also for those who do not obey Him or who have withdrawn themselves from Him. Have pity on all these souls who do not know the King of Love and of Glory, in Whom we have the happiness to believe, in Whom we have the happiness to love. Beseech Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph to convert all these souls to Our Lord Jesus Christ, the King.

[Emphasis - The Catacombs]]]> Sermon of Archbishop Lefebvre - Feast of Christ the King - October 28, 1979

Taken from here.