The Neo-SSPX - Unfaithful to Archbishop Lefebvre

2/15/2014

The Neo-SSPX’s US district website, which has certainly posted its fair share of anti-Resistance content, is now at it yet again. It recently released a new article defending its deplorable actions while bashing the “rebellion” of the Resistance. In this same article, the Neo-SSPX once again claims that it and its leader, Bishop Fellay, are still faithful to the mission of Archbishop Lefebvre, while those that have dissented have chosen a dangerous and rebellious path which, they tell us, is not pleasing to God. The article is actually taken from an editorial from a Neo-SSPX priory in France, and is written by Fr. Michel Simoulin.

There are several parts of the article worth addressing, in what is, I might add, an obvious attempt at damage control while the Neo-SSPX attempts to pick up the pieces and restore its image in the aftermath of the numerous mistakes made by its leadership. I will begin with this paragraph:

“For several months now actually, it has seemed that a wind of madness is blowing in our circles, and this wind is so violent and irrational that it has caused some priests or laypeople to fall—too many, but fortunately not as many as they would like you to think. Some fall to the left, finding Bishop Fellay too strict, the others fall to the right, finding him too lax or liberal. Thank God, the great majority continues to walk straight ahead, faithful to the spirit of Archbishop Lefebvre.“

Firstly, “not as many as they would like you to think” is a misleading remark. The Resistance does not claim to be larger than it actually is. The Resistance priests admit that they are fairly small in size. But as we are all aware, truth is not determined by numbers. The majority of Catholics, in the midst of the turmoil caused by Vatican II, went along with the changes instituted by the Council, while only a portion of Catholics remained faithful to Tradition. We certainly know who was right in that situation.

Furthermore, the Neo-SSPX and its followers are not “faithful to the spirit of Archbishop Lefebvre” as the Neo-SSPX would like to have you think. I’ll address this in further detail in a moment.

“But you have to admit that the air sometimes becomes stifling: if you publicly declare your fidelity to and confidence in the Superior General, they will say that you are sowing disorder and making trouble. But if you speak publicly against Bishop Fellay, accusing him of liberalism and of secret maneuvers to bring about a reconciliation, you will have the reputation of being a valiant defender of the Faith and of the spirit of Archbishop Lefebvre. So it is, strange to say!“

Bishop Fellay has shown clearly through his own actions that he does not deserve the confidence of the faithful. This has been demonstrated so many times, through both his words and actions, that it is not necessary to delve into too much detail here. Those who declare their fidelity to him are indeed sowing disorder, but it is much more severe than that. They are participating in the creation of a new “brand” of “Traditionalism”. Only it is not genuine Traditionalism in the slightest, it is neo-Traditionalism. Declaring that the Jews are our “elder brothers” or that Vatican II is “95% acceptable” is not truly Traditional.

Here is the next paragraph:

“This has been said and written so many times already that you hesitate to say it once again, but Archbishop Lefebvre never made any claim to “converting” Rome or the Pope. At the very most, he used to say to those who rebuked him for going to Rome: “Who knows? I may do them a little good!” He never rejected contacts or discussions with Rome, in the hope of gaining freedom for his work and for Tradition. He fought and condemned the modern errors, those from before the Council, those of the Council and those after the Council, but he never fought or condemned Rome or the Pope.”

The fact that Archbishop Lefebvre continued to maintain contact with Rome is greatly exaggerated in this piece. He continued to go to Rome in order to convert them, not to have friendly dialogue with them or to try to “reconcile” with them. The Archbishop said this in 1990 of those that sell out to Rome (which is precisely what was attempted by Bishop Fellay in 2012):

“And we must not waver for one moment either in not being with those who are in the process of betraying us. Some people are always admiring the grass in the neighbor’s field. Instead of looking to their friends, to the Church’s defenders, to those fighting on the battlefield, they look to our enemies on the other side. “After all, we must be charitable, we must be kind, we must not be divisive, after all, they are celebrating the Tridentine Mass, they are not as bad as everyone says” —but THEY ARE BETRAYING US —betraying us! They are shaking hands with the Church’s destroyers. They are shaking hands with people holding modernist and liberal ideas condemned by the Church. So they are doing the devil’s work.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, Address to his priests, Econe, 1990)

Next paragraph:

“And history, in its objective truth—quite apart from all the interpretations that we can give to the facts--tells us that his work was approved and recognized by Bishop Charriere, a thoroughly conciliar bishop, who never bothered His Excellency; and history also tells us that the protocol agreement that he had signed on May 5, 1988 went much further than Bishop Fellay’s proposals of last year. And Archbishop Lefebvre was not the one who put an end to the meetings; it was none other than Cardinal Ratzinger, by refusing what His Excellency requested in his letter dated May 6, 1988 (the consecration of one bishop, as provided in the protocol agreement). These are things that should not be forgotten [as well as the fact that all of this transpired two weeks later and after the Archbishop had made some visits to Rome—so he did not reject the Protocol the next day as has been falsely claimed —Ed].“

The above is untrue. Archbishop Lefebvre’s 1988 protocol did not go further than the 2012 preamble of Bishop Fellay. Read the Archbishop’s protocol, then compare it with +Fellay’s. It is obvious to those with sufficient reading comprehension that + Fellay’s proposals went much further.

As for the assertion that the Archbishop did not reject the protocol the next day, I present you with his own words on the matter:

“Regarding the May 5, 1988 Protocol… “If only you knew what a night I passed after signing that infamous agreement! Oh! How I wanted morning to come so that I could give Fr. du Chalard my letter of retraction which I had written during the night.” (‘Marcel Lefebvre’ Bp. Tissier de Mallerais p. 555).

Moving on to the next paragraph:

“Some may disagree with Archbishop Lefebvre’s stance (but then they should have said so during his lifetime!), or Bishop Fellay’s (but then they should have said so at the time of the first contacts in 2000!), but it is strange that this reawakening of consciences is occurring only now that nothing was accomplished and nothing is foreseen; and it is untrue to accuse Bishop Fellay of being unfaithful to Archbishop Lefebvre. Aside from differences in temperament or personal experience, the line has remained the same, and there are no indications that it is about to change; quite the contrary.”

It actually is true to say that Bishop Fellay has been unfaithful to Archbishop Lefebvre. This article should shed some light on that:

http://traditionalcatholicremnant.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/two-conflicting-mindsets/

There are other things worth noting as examples, including the fact that Bishop Fellay recently banned a book in France that consisted primarily of quotes from the Archbishop. If that is not “being unfaithful to Archbishop Lefebvre”, I don’t know what is.

The article is prolonged for several more paragraphs, but I need only address one final paragraph here:

“In all this controversy, what many people lack is quite simply the sensus Ecclesiae, the mind of the Church. I do not claim to be better than those who abandon us, but I wonder: toward what Church are they venturing? The Church of Pius XII? Of St. Pius X? Of St. Pius V? But these “Churches” do not exist, any more than the “conciliar Church” or “modernist Rome” exist—these are merely expressions to describe the state of the Church or of Rome since the last Council, since they have been infested with a “non-Catholic sort of thinking” that tries to give them a more “worldly” face. There is only the Holy Catholic Church and Eternal Rome, to which Archbishop Lefebvre paid a vivid homage at the conclusion of his book Spiritual Journey, and that we desire to serve with all the grace received by the Church on the Feast of All Saints in 1970. They simply forget that the Church is not a “mental object”, as the philosophers say.”

What about the church that Bishop Fellay is venturing towards? It is the conciliar church, and we know what the Archbishop said about those that venture towards it:

“This Conciliar Church is, therefore, not Catholic. To whatever extent Pope, Bishops, priests, or the faithful adhere to this new church, they separate themselves from the Catholic Church.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, Reflections on his suspension a divinis, July 29, 1976)

To sum things up, we must ask ourselves who is truly faithful to the mission of Archbishop Lefebvre. Reviewing the facts, it becomes clear that it certainly isn’t Bishop Fellay and the Neo-SSPX! This new jab at the Resistance from (N)SSPX.org only re-affirms that.

God Bless.

http://traditionalcatholicremnant.wordpress.com/2014/02/15/the-neo-sspx-unfaithful-to-the-archbishop/

"What am I to think about the Pope?" The Archbishop

1/18/2014

They ask me, what do you think of the Pope?

Not much, it's a mystery, an improbable mystery.

It's a great tragedy for the Church, because ultimately, who's with the Pope is with the Church, is with the unity of the Church... But there is also a question mark. When we say "How is it possible that the Pope, if he's truly Pope, successor of St. Peter, he must in consequence have the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, he must be protected by the Holy Spirit in what he does, because he's the Pope we have the promise of our Lord that he will be protected in upholding the faith... Therefore someone who does these kinds of things is not Pope...This Pope is doing things that are so contrary to the faith, against the Church, so destructive to the faith of the Church, and the Church itself... But it's not the Pope, it's his entourage... Well, here's one solution. The Pope is a prisoner, the Pope is a martyr, the Pope is locked in, the Pope isn't free to do what he wants, the Pope is drugged, the Pope is half-crazy, the Pope is I don't know what, he's a human wreck who is led around and manipulated...That's one solution. It's a solution that I'd say is astonishingly supported by many visionaries, people who think they have visions, I'd say they are diabolical in origin, these visions.

These visions of those who say that the Holy Father is a prisoner, that the Holy Father is somehow incapable, that he's drugged, for the thirteen years that he's been there he has no responsibility for anything. They've locked this man up and then eventually we get to the point where there's another Pope who is imprisoned under the Vatican, then they've given him a double and other things like this that are just ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous, no? Idiotic, completely idiotic, aren't they, and all of this is very smart on the part of the devil because this sways a certain amount of people, right, who are always saying: The Pope! The Pope! The Pope! No, no, no, don't speak to me about the Pope! Be obedient! Be obedient! I beg you, I beg you, it's his entourage, it's not him.

But I will say you can also look at the problem from another angle and say: good, ultimately I agree with you, it's not possible that the Pope who is protected by the Holy Ghost, by the words of Our Lord Jesus Christ, could do things like this. There we agree, it's not possible, it doesn't fit, this destruction of the Church, this destruction of the Social Reign of Christ the King, this destruction of the Catholic faith in every aspect, every catechism, every university, every religious order, the seminaries, everywhere you look it is the systematic destruction of the Church, which was aimed at by all of these reforms that the Vatican implemented, because Vatican II wasn't, I'd say, what allowed these reforms to be put into effect, what had to be done was to implement the reforms of Vatican II in an equivocal way, this allowed them to start putting the reforms into practice and this was the goal, it [ Vatican II I believe ] was the springboard that permitted all this, so it can be said that the Holy Father, in effect, that it's not possible that a Pope could do all this, therefore he's not Pope.

This reasoning is worth, this reasoning, I don't know, I don't say that's what's going on and there are several scenarios, maybe this one has some merit, we'll know the truth later maybe, I don't know, I don't know. The way I see it, it's not clear yet, you understand, but one day if it came to light that it was true, and this is something that is far from impossible, here also, there are apparitions that say the same thing and these apparitions have been recognized by the See of Peter, Fatima, La Salette, that say that the devil will climb to the highest places in the Church, I don't know if by the "highest place in the Church" that means Secretary of State, and then stops there, or if it goes even farther, if it goes all the way to the Pope. I don't know maybe even to someone who says he's the Pope, I don't know, but you know this is something that isn't impossible and theologians have studied this problem, the theologians have studied this problem to see if it's something that can happen, if a Pope can perhaps be a heretic and as a result excommunicated from the Church and therefore all his acts become illegitimate and invalid. And if, just as a hypothesis, once again I just don't know, don't put words in my mouth, I don't know, but if at last it comes out that quietly that there are certain connections to Masonry, imagine that the Pope was registered in a Masonic lodge before his election, he would be excommunicated. Excommunicated... His election is invalid, he can't be Pope and we would have had for all this time... A Pope who wasn't Pope. This is possible. Once again I don't say this is what is really happening but what do you want in a situation like this, we're looking for a solution. We find ourselves with a problem that has almost no theological solution, theologically, I say theologically almost impossible to solve, so we search for a solution, fine! A solution that he is a prisoner, drugged, this is possible. I admit that when you see him move around and talk, personally I haven't seen him for two years, I haven't seen him in the flesh, I mean privately but with a public audience, I saw him put aside his paper and his script, speaking with a skill, a fluidity, getting to the point, with intelligence but in full possession of his faculties, in full possession of his faculties, not a man who had been drugged, or who has been given a shot or who... Not at all! The farthest thing from it!

Well then, when he blessed the Pentecostals, was there a revolver pointed at his head? When he kissed the feet of the Orthodox was there a revolver pointed at his head? ... No, this is absurd, it's not possible. Besides Mgr. Benelli said to me three weeks ago, when I saw him, Mgr. Benelli said to me: 'It's the Pope who wrote you those letters, you don't want to believe it but it's the Pope who wrote them to you, he is fully up to date, he is up to date about everything, he knows very well what he's doing and he's the one who wants all this happen and he makes the decisions and when I leave, when this conversation we're having is over and I leave, I am going to see the Pope every day, and I am immediately going to tell him what was said in this conversation.

From the French

Paul IV, a liberal! -Archbishop's opinion

12/31/2013

Excerpt from The have uncrowned Him, Angelus Press

Obviously, the Church will one day judge this council and these popes. How will Paul VI, in particular, fare? Some call him heretic, schismatic, and apostate; others believe themselves to have proved that he could not have acted for the good of the Church, and that therefore he was not in fact pope - the theory held by Sedevacantists. I do not deny that these opinions have some arguments in their favor. Perhaps, you will say, in 30 years secrets will have been revealed, or elements that should have been obvious to contemporary observers will stand out, statements made by this pope in complete contradiction to the traditions of the Church, etc. Perhaps. But I do not believe that such hypotheses are necessary; in fact, I think it would be a mistake to espouse them.

Others think, simplistically, that there were two popes: one, the true pope, imprisoned in the cellars of the Vatican, and the other, an imposter, his double, seated on the throne of Peter, working for the destruction of the Church. Books have been published about the two popes, based on the ‘revelations’ of a possessed person and on supposedly scientific arguments that state, for instance, that the double’s voice is not the same as that of the real Paul VI…!

The real solution seems entirely different to me, much more complex, more difficult, and more painful. It is given us by a friend of Paul VI, Cardinal Danielou. In his Memoirs, published by a member of his family, the cardinal clearly states, “It is clear that Paul VI is a liberal Pope.”

Such is the solution that seems the most historically likely, because this pope was himself a fruit of liberalism. His whole life was permeated with the influence of the men he chose to surround him or to rule him, and they were liberals.

Paul VI did not hide his liberal leanings; at the Council, the men he chose as moderators to replace the presidents appointed by John XXIII, were Cardinal Agagianian, a cardinal of colorless personality from the Curia, and Cardinals Lercaro, Suenens and Dopfner, all three liberals and the pope’s friends. The presidents were sidelined at the head table, and these three liberals directed the conciliar debates. In the same way, Paul VI supported the liberal faction that opposed the tradition of the Church throughout the entire Council. This is a recognized fact. Paul VI repeated – I quoted it to you - the exact words of Lammenais at the end of the Council: “L’Eglise ne demande que la liberte” – the Church only seeks freedom - a doctrine condemned by Gregory XVI and Pius IX.

Paul VI was undeniably very strongly influenced by liberalism. This explains the historic evolution experienced by the Church over the last few decades, and it describes Paul VI’s personal behavior very well. The liberal, as I have told you, is a man who lives in constant contradiction. He states the principles, and does the opposite; he is perpetually incoherent.

Here are a few examples of the thesis-antithesis conundrums that Paul VI loved to present as so many insoluble problems, mirroring his anxious and conflicted mind. The encyclical Ecclesiam suam, (August 6, 1964), provides an illustration:

If, as We said, the Church realizes what is God’s will in its regard, it will gain for itself a great store of energy, and in addition will conceive the need for pouring out this energy in the service of all men. It will have a clear awareness of a mission received from God, of a message to be spread far and wide. Here lies the source of our evangelical duty, our mandate to teach all nations, and our apostolic endeavor to strive for the eternal salvation of all men. (…) The very nature of the gifts which Christ has given the Church demands that they be extended to others and shared with others. This must be obvious from the words: “Going, therefore, teach ye all nations,” Christ’s final command to His apostles. The word apostle implies a mission from which there is no escaping.

That is the thesis, and the antithesis follows immediately:

To this internal drive of charity which seeks expression in the external gift of charity, We will apply the word ‘dialogue.’ The Church must enter into dialogue with the world in which it lives. It has something to say, a message to give, a communication to make.

And finally he attempts a synthesis, which only reinforces the antithesis:

Before we can convert the world - as the very condition of converting the world - we must approach it and speak to it.[1]

Of greater gravity are the words with which Paul VI suppressed Latin in the liturgy after the Council, and they are even more characteristic of his liberal psychology. After restating all the advantages of Latin: a sacred language, an unchanging language, a universal language, he calls, in the name of adaptation, for the “sacrifice” of Latin, admitting at the same time that it will be a great loss for the Church. Here are his very words, reported by Louis Salleron in his book La nouvelle messe [The New Mass] (Nouvelles Editions Latines, 2nd ed., 1976, p. 83)

On March 7, 1965, he said to the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s square,

It is a sacrifice that the Church makes in renouncing Latin, a sacred language, beautiful, expressive, and elegant. The Church sacrifices centuries of tradition and unity of language in the name of an ever-growing desire for universality.

The ‘sacrifice’ of which he spoke became a reality with the Instruction Tres abhinc annos (May 4, 1967) which established the use of the vernacular for reciting the Canon of the Mass aloud.

This ‘sacrifice,’ in Paul VI’s mind, seems to have been final. He explained it once again on November 26, 1969, when he presented the new rite of the Mass:

The principal language of the Mass will no longer be Latin, but the vernacular. For anyone familiar with the beauty and power of Latin, its aptness for expression of the sacred, it will certainly be a great sacrifice to see it replaced by the vernacular. We are losing the language of centuries of Christianity, we become as intruders, reduced to the profane in the literary domain of expressing the sacred. We lose, too, the greater part of the admirable, incomparable wealth of art and spirituality contained in Gregorian chant. It is with good reason, then, that we experience regret and even distress.

Everything therefore should have dissuaded Paul VI from imposing this ‘sacrifice’ and persuaded him to maintain the use of Latin. On the contrary, deriving a singularly masochistic pleasure from his ‘distress,’ he chose to act against the principles he had just set forth, and decreed the ‘sacrifice’ in the name of promoting understanding of prayer, a specious argument that was only a modernist pretext.

Never has liturgical Latin been an obstacle to the conversion of infidels or to their education as Christians. Quite the opposite: the simple peoples of Africa and Asia loved Gregorian chant and the one sacred language, the sign of their affiliation to Catholicism. And experience shows that where Latin was not imposed by missionaries of the Latin Church, there the seeds of future schism were planted.

Paul VI followed these remarks with this contradictory pronouncement:

The solution seems banal and prosaic, but it is good, because it is human and apostolic. The understanding of prayer is more precious than the dilapidated silks in which it has been royally clad. More precious is the participation of the people, the people of today who want us to speak clearly, intelligibly, in words that can be translated into their secular tongue. If the noble Latin language cuts us off from children, from youth, from the world of work and business, if it is an opaque screen instead of a transparent crystal, would we fishers of men do well to maintain its exclusive use in the language of prayer and religion?

Alas, what mental confusion. Who prevents me from praying in my own tongue? But liturgical prayer is not private prayer; it is the prayer of the whole Church. Moreover, another lamentable lack of distinction is present: the liturgy is not a teaching addressed to the faithful, but the worship the Christian people address to God. Catechism is one thing, and the liturgy is another. The point is not that we “speak clearly” to the people assembled in the church, but rather that these people may praise God in the most beautiful, most sacred, and most solemn manner possible. “Praying to God with beauty” was St. Pius X’s liturgical maxim. How right he was!

You see, the liberal mind is conflicted and confused, anguished and contradictory. Such a mind was Paul VI’s. Louis Salleron explained it very well when he described Paul VI’s physical countenance, saying “he was two-faced.” Not duplicitous—this word expresses a malicious intent to deceive which was not present in Paul VI. No, he had a double personality, and the contrast between the sides of face expressed this: traditionalist in words, then modernist in action; Catholic in his premises and principles, and then progressive in his conclusions; not condemning what he should have, and then condemning what he ought to have preserved.

This psychological weakness afforded an ideal opportunity for the enemies of the Church. While maintaining a Catholic face (or half-face, if you like) he contradicted tradition without hesitation, he encouraged change, baptized mutation and progress, and followed the lead of the enemies of the Church, who egged him on.

Did not the Izvestia, official newspaper of the Communist Soviet party, demand from Paul VI my condemnation and that of Econe in the name of Vatican II? And the Italian Communist paper L’Unita followed suit after the sermon I gave in Lille on August 29, 1976; furious because of my attack on Communism, they devoted an entire page to their demand. “Be aware,” they wrote, addressing Paul VI, “be aware of the danger Lefebvre represents, and continue the magnificent approach initiated through the ecumenism of Vatican II.” With friends like these, who needs enemies? This is a sad illustration of a rule we have already established: liberalism leads from compromise to treason.

The psychology of a liberal pope is easy enough to imagine, but difficult to bear! Indeed, such a leader—be it Paul VI or John Paul II—puts us in a very delicate position.

In practice, our attitude must base itself on a preliminary distinction, made necessary by the extraordinary circumstances of a pope won over by liberalism. This is the distinction we must make: when the pope says something in keeping with tradition, we follow him; when he opposes the Faith, or encourages opposition of the Faith, or allows something to be done that attacks the Faith, then we cannot follow him. The fundamental reason for this is that the Church, the pope, and the hierarchy must serve the Faith. They do not make the Faith, they must serve it. The Faith cannot be made; it is immutable, and must be transmitted.

This is why papal teachings intended to validate actions opposed to tradition cannot be followed. In following, we would participate in the self-destruction of the Church, in the destruction of our Faith.

It is clear that what is unceasingly demanded of us—complete submission to the pope, complete submission to the Council, acceptance of the entire liturgical reform—is in opposition to tradition, in the sense that the pope, the Council and the reforms lead us far from tradition, as the facts show more overwhelmingly every year. Therefore, to demand these things is to require us to participate in the downfall of the Faith. Impossible! The martyrs died to defend the Faith; we have the example of Christians imprisoned, tortured, sent to concentration camps for the Faith. One grain of incense offered to an idol, and their lives would have been safe. I was advised once, “Sign, sign saying you accept everything, and then you can continue as before!” No! One does not play games with the Faith.

Footnote

1 English translation taken from the Vatican’s website

Archbishop Lefebvre Greatest Quotes II

11/29/2013

“It appears to us much more certain that the faith taught by the Church over twenty years cannot contain error than that there is absolute certainty that the Pope really is the pope. Heresy, schism, ipso facto excommunication, and the invalidity of the election are all potential reasons why a Pope was never really the Pope or should cease to be the Pope. In such a case, clearly a very exceptional one, the Church would find herself in a situation similar to that which she experiences after the decease of a Sovereign Pontiff. For, in a word, a very serious problem presents itself to the conscience and the faith of all Catholics since the beginning of the papacy of Paul VI. How is it that a Pope, the true successor of Peter, assured of the assistance of the Holy Ghost, could preside over the destruction of the Church, the most profound and extensive in her history, in such a short space of time, something which no heresiarch has ever succeeded in doing? To this question there will one day have to be a reply.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, Declaration to Figaro, shortly after his suspension by Paul VI, August 27th, 1976)

“If our priests came to abandon the true liturgy, the true Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the true Sacraments, then it would no longer be worth while to continue. It would be suicide!

When Rome asked: “But surely you can adopt the new liturgy and continue your seminaries, that won’t make them disappear,” I answered: “Yes, it will make out seminaries disappear. They would not be able to accept the new liturgy, it would amount to introducing the poison of the conciliar spirit into the community. If others were unable to hold on, it is because they adopted this new liturgy, all of these reforms and this new spirit. As for us, if we accept the same things, we will have the same results.

This is why we must absolutely maintain our Traditional line, in spite of the appearance of disobedience and the persecutions of those who use their authority in an unjust and often illegal manner.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, Conference given during a priestly retreat Econe, September 1986)

“We must not be afraid to affirm that the current Roman authorities, since John XXIII and Paul VI, have made themselves active collaborators of international Jewish Freemasonry and of world socialism. John Paul II is above all a communist-loving politician at the service of a world communism retaining a hint of religion. He openly attacks all of the anti-communist governments and does not bring, by his travels, any Catholic revival.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, “Marcel Lefebvre: The Biography” by Bishop Tissier, pp. 602-603)

“Eminence, even if you give us everything–a bishop, some autonomy from the bishops, the 1962 liturgy, allow us to continue our seminaries–we cannot work together because we are going in different directions. You are working to dechristianize society and the Church, and we are working to Christianize them.” (Archbishop Lefebvre to Cardinal Ratzinger, 1987)

“We must not forget also the prophecies of the most holy Virgin Mary. She warned us: without the Conversion of Russia, without conversion of the world, without prayer and penance, communism shall invade the whole world. What does that mean? We know very well that the goal of the secret societies is a world government, with Masonic ideals, i.e the rights of men, equality, fraternity and liberty, understood in an anti-christian sense, against Our Lord. These ideals would be promoted by a world government, which would establish a kind of socialism for all countries and then a congress of religions, encompassing all religions, including the Catholic Religion, in the service of this world government, as the Russian Orthodox are in the service of the soviets. There would be two congresses: a universal political congress, which would control the whole world, and this Congress of religions, which would support this world government, in a mercenary way.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, sermon given at Paris on the occasion of the celebration of his 60th anniversary of ordination, November 19th, 1989)

“The pope stated on many occasions that he was in favor of modernist ideas, in favor of a compromise with the world. In his own words, it was ‘necessary to throw a bridge between the church and the secular world.’

The pope said that it was necessary to attempt humanist ideas, that it was necessary to discuss such ideas; that it was necessary to have dialogs. At this stage, it is important to state that dialogs are contrary to the doctrines of the Catholic faith. Dialogs presuppose the coming together of two equal and opposing sides; therefore, in no way could (dialog) have anything to do with the Catholic faith.

We believe and accept our faith as the only true faith in the world. All this confusion ends up in compromises, which destroy the Church’s doctrines, for the misfortune of mankind and the church alike.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, interview, 1978)

“So by way of conclusion, either we are the heirs of the Catholic Church, i.e., of Quanta Cura, of Pascendi, with all the Popes down to the Council and with the great majority of bishops prior to the Council, for the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ and for the salvation of souls; or else we are the heirs of those who strive, even at the price at breaking with the Catholic Church and her doctrine, to acknowledge the principles of the Rights of Man, based on a veritable apostasy, in order to obtain a place as servants in the Revolutionary World Government. That is it. They will manage to get quite a good place as servants in the Revolutionary World Government because, by saying they are in favour of the Rights of Man, religious liberty, democracy and human equality, clearly they are worth being given a position as servants in the World Government.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, address to his priests at Econe, 1990)

“I do not see how one could found a seminary using the New Mass. I would not find in it the strength, even with the greatest good will. The True, Traditional Latin Mass, is the heart of the seminary, of the priest, of the Church, of the Gospel, of Our Lord. St. Pius V saw this well: the True Ancient Mass is also faith’s barrier against heresy. (Archbishop Lefebvre, November 23rd, 1972)

“The devil’s greatest victory is to have undertaken the destruction of the Church without making any martyrs.

But the Church against her past and her Tradition is not the Catholic Church; this is why being excommunicated by a liberal, ecumenical, and revolutionary Church is a matter of indifference to us.(Archbishop Lefebvre, The Biography of Marcel Lefebvre by His Excellency Bishop Bernard Tissier, Kansas City, Missouri: Angelus Press, 2004, pp. 547.)

“Ecumenism is not the Church’s mission. The Church is not ecumenical, she is missionary. The goal of the missionary Church is to convert. The goal of the ecumenical Church is to find what is true in errors and to remain at this level. It is to deny the truth of the Church. (Archbishop Lefebvre, April 14th, 1978)

“Yes, I am a rebel. Yes, I am a dissident. Yes, I am disobedient to people like those Bugninis. For they have infiltrated themselves into the Church in order to destroy it. There is no other explanation.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, Conference on the Infiltration of modernism in the Church, Montreal Canada, 1982)

“. . . .most recently, the Pope has been into the synagogue of the Jews in Rome. How can the Pope pray with the enemies of Jesus Christ? These Jews know and say and believe that they are the successors of the Jews that killed Jesus Christ, and they continue to fight against Jesus Christ everywhere in the world. At the end of the Pope’s visit, the Jews sang a “hymn” that included the line “I believe with all my heart in the coming of the Messiah,” meaning they refuse Jesus as the Messiah, and the Pope had given permission for this denial of Christ to be sung in his presence, and he listened, with head bowed!” (Archbishop Lefebvre, talk on Assisi meeting, 1986)

“We consider as null…all the post-conciliar reforms, and all the acts of Rome accomplished in this impiety.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, Joint Declaration with Bishop de Castro Mayer following Assisi, December 2, 1986)

“Two religions confront each other; we are in a dramatic situation and it is impossible to avoid a choice, but the choice is not between obedience and disobedience. What is suggested to us, what we are expressly invited to do, what we are persecuted for not doing, is to choose an appearance of obedience. But even the Holy Father cannot ask us to abandon our faith.

We therefore choose to keep it and we cannot be mistaken in clinging to what the Church has taught for two thousand years. The crisis is profound, cleverly organised and directed, and by this token one can truly believe that the master mind is not a man but Satan himself. For it is a master-stroke of Satan to get Catholics to disobey the whole of Tradition in the name of obedience [...] St. Thomas Aquinas, to whom we must always refer, goes so far in the “Summa Theologica” as to ask whether the “fraternal correction” prescribed by Our Lord can be exercised towards our superiors. After having made all the appropriate distinctions he replies: “One can exercise fraternal correction towards superiors when it is a matter of faith.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, “Open Letter to Confused Catholics”, 1986)

John Paul II “now continually diffuses the principles of a false religion, which has for its result a general apostasy.”(Archbishop Lefebvre, Preface to Giulio Tam’s Osservatore Romano 1990, contributed by the Archbishop just three weeks before his death)

“It is not for me to know when Tradition will regain its rights at Rome, but I think it is my duty to provide the means of doing that which I shall call “Operation Survival,” operation survival for Tradition. Today, this day, is Operation Survival. If I had made this deal with Rome, by continuing with the agreements we had signed, and by putting them into practice, I would have performed “Operation Suicide”. There was no choice, we must live! That is why today, by consecrating these bishops, I am convinced that I am continuing to keep Tradition alive, that is to say, the Catholic Church.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, sermon given at Consecrations of four Bishops at Econe, June 30th, 1988)

Shared from Traditional Catholic Remnant

Meditations of Archbishop Lefebvre III

10/21/2013

A DIVINE PERSON II

It can be wondered today if there are any real Catholics left among those who call themselves Catholic, because everyone finds it natural to speak of freedom of religion and the liberty of worship. Yet that cannot be conceded, because it is contrary to the dignity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. They will accuse you of being intolerant. How many Catholics think the same thing, even in our own Catholic families?

If you affirm there is only one true religion, the religion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and all the others come from the devil, that they are of the Antichrist because they deny the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, they will accuse you of being intolerant. "So, you want to go back to the Middle Ages," they will sneer. No, we only want to restore what is: Our Lord is King. The day when He comes suddenly in majesty upon the clouds of heaven they will say, "Ah, indeed, He is King; we did not believe it was possible."

Yes, Our Lord is King, and He will be the only one, there shall be none beside Him. People are not able to convince themselves of it. They are infected by liberalism, by the secularism that affects many. Our Lord Jesus Christ is no longer ascribed his true place.
His reign must be established on the earth as in heaven. It is He himself who said so in the prayer that He taught us, the Our Father: Adveniat regnum tuum, fiat voluntas tua sicut in caelo et in terra. And this must be the object of our prayers, the intention of our sufferings, and the purpose of our life. We must have no rest until our Lord's reign is established. A Catholic whose heart is not animated by this profound desire is not a Catholic. He is not one of the faithful of our Lord Jesus Christ. It suffices to reread these lines:

Now at last in these times he has spoken to us, with a Son to speak for him; a Son, whom he has appointed to inherit all things, just as it was through him that he created this world of time (Heb. 1:2).

It is Jesus Christ, God by whom all things were created. The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are together the Creator of the world.10 It is by the Word that the Father created the world in the Holy Ghost.

It is not necessary to have recourse to apologetics or to cite exhaustively all the proofs of the divinity and the humanity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. What we need most of all for our spiritual life is to affirm our Faith and not prove it, because it reposes upon the authority of God, on the words of our Lord.

We have perhaps too much of a tendency to rationalize our Faith, to find proofs. Undoubtedly, our Faith is reasonable, and there are valid motives for believing; but we have the Faith, it is by Faith that we believe in God Our Lord, and we must affirm this Faith.

10 "Et in unum Dominum Jesum Christum...per quern omniafacta sunt—And through Him all things were made" (Nicene Creed).

Extracts from The Mystery of Jesus, by Archbishop Lefebvre, Angelus Press 2000

Meditations of Archbishop Lefebvre IV

10/20/2013

JESUS CHRIST
CONSUBSTANTIAL WITH THE FATHER

We must love to think over the whole life of our Lord in order better to grasp the great mystery which is our Lord and which unites in Him the three grand mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Redemption. The Creed is a nourishing spiritual food. There is no need to look for a difficult and complicated topic for our meditation; the Creed offers us a very fruitful one, and initiates us into the great mysteries which are to be our consolation here below and our joy in heaven.

The Symbol of Nicea is even more explicit:
I believe in one God, the Father almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things, visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. And born of the Father, before all ages. God of God: Light of Light: true God of true God. Begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father...

Here it is a question of the Divine nature of Our Lord, by whom all things were made.

Then comes His Incarnation:
Who, for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven. And became incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary: and was made man. He was crucified also for us, suffered under Pontius Pilate, and was buried. And the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures. And ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, of whose kingdom there shall be no end....

All the clauses of these sentences take on considerable importance. The Credo is short, quickly read or recited, but it is the very thing that men should know and meditate all their life long. After all, knowing what God has done for us is the most essential thing.

It is clearly affirmed that God is the Creator of all things: our Lord who is God is our Creator. He is the Word of God by whom all was made, hence He is both our Beginning and our End. He desired to make Himself our way which leads to the end; and not only our way, but also our nourishment, and also to be our brother and to communicate to us the divine life. It is an admirable history. Our Lord is the measure of the worth of persons and things. To the degree that the one and the other are nearer our Lord they have real worth, true worth. Clearly, then, it is the most Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph who hold the first places.

In spirituality, there is a tendency to minimize the place and the role of St. Joseph; yet he held an extraordinary place in the economy of the Incarnation and the Redemption. To him were confided the Mother of Jesus, and Jesus himself, thus God Himself. He certainly received very special graces of light on the mystery of the Incarnation.

In the measure that men are close to Our Lord, they become transformed in our Lord, they live in our Lord. This is seen in the history of the Church: it is around our Lord that families, communities, villages and towns are constituted. Literally, all live around our Lord. Even professional associations had their patron saints and feastdays within the profession, within society. In the family, the entire atmosphere was imbued with the presence of our Lord. We must try to restore this ambiance, and introduce the presence of our Lord once again into our daily lives, and His royalty into the course of everyday public life. We must become truly Christian once again.

We must dwell upon the mystery of our Lord Jesus Christ, and believe in His Divinity, for He is God.

The Nicene Creed continues:
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. Together with the Father and the Son he is adored and glorified; he it was who spoke through the prophets.
I believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. I profess one baptism for the remission of sins. And I look forward to the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Notice that the Symbol of Nicea begins with this sentence: "I believe in one God"; hence, there are not several Gods. When the highest authority of the Church and the bishops go so far as to say: "We have the same God," in speaking of the Moslems, it is incredible. For they do not believe in the Blessed Trinity, and they do not have the same Faith as we do. The god they adore will give them, so they think, a hundredfold of the material goods they enjoy on earth. The richer one is, the richer one will be; the more concubines one has, the more one "will have in the figment they paint for themselves of heaven....Such is the god of the Moslems, whom we are told is He whom we adore!

Such statements are senseless and blasphemous.

Meditations of Archbishop Lefebvre II

10/10/2013

A DIVINE PERSON I

With our poor human imagination, it seems difficult to realize that the one to whom the apostles spoke, whom the Blessed Virgin carried in her womb and in her arms, that this Child Jesus is He by whom all things were made.

Placed before the image of the Infant Jesus in the crib, some might be moved to say, "It is not possible, He could not possibly have created the earth; he was just born." To these St. Paul gives the reply: He was just born, yes, but His Person is a divine Person, and this Person is God, the Word of God. It is truly the Word of God who is there present in the crib, who assumes this body and soul. It is the Word of God, it is this divine Person whom we address. When you speak to someone, you address the person. This Person was the Word of God, by whom all was created. How can anyone then say that this Person who is the Word of God made Man is not Saviour, and Priest and King, the three great attributes that this Person gives to this creature of God by the grace of the hypostatic union? 9
Has any man then the right to be indifferent to the presence of the Word of God in our midst? It is inconceivable. God has willed to come among us; who then has a right to say, "Just let me live my life: I don't need Jesus Christ to live." It is unthinkable, especially since He came to save us from our sins. Consequently, we are all affected because we are all sinners. He came to die on the cross to redeem us from eternal damnation; can anyone then be disinterested? And how can they dare to compare this Person who is our Lord Jesus Christ to Mohammed or Buddha or Luther?... How can a Catholic who has the Faith utter such words? How can they even speak of "the religions, all the religions, the cults" as if they were equal?

Pope Pius VII manifested his indignation when presented with the Constitution of France in which was affirmed the freedom of all the religions. He reacted against the words "all the religions." By these words they were putting the holy religion of God, of our Lord Jesus Christ, on the same level as the heresies and schisms. He was outraged, and he wrote to the Archbishop of Troyes: "Go and see the king. Tell him that it is inadmissible for a Catholic monarch, for a king who calls himself Catholic, to allow the freedom 'of all the religions,' without distinction." The Pope was indignant. This should be the conviction of every Catholic.

It is not possible to be a Catholic and not feel outrage when they speak of "all the religions," placing thereby our Lord on a par with Buddha and all the rest. They do not believe that our Lord is God. They do not believe that it is the Person of God who is before us. Clearly not. Are there several incarnations of God? In Buddha? In Mohammed? In Luther? No, there is only one, in our Lord Jesus Christ. This fact has enormous consequences, and we should sense this in proportion to our belief in the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.

What St. John says on this point is very important, as we have seen. It can be summed up in this way: He who affirms that Jesus Christ is God is of God, and he who denies that our Lord Jesus Christ is God is an antichrist (cf. I Jn. 2:22). Antichrist! and, consequently, a devil. St. John, for one, had the Faith, and he knew how to draw the consequences.

9 The union of two natures, divine and human, of Jesus Christ in one unique person, the Person of the divine Word. From the fact that this man Jesus Christ, is God, he is necessarily Savior, Priest, and King.

Extracts from The Mystery of Jesus, by Archbishop Lefebvre, Angelus Press 2000

Meditations of Archbishop Lefebvre I

10/1/2013

THE WORD MADE FLESH

All the errors which are spread around nowadays, and which make believe that there is another way of salvation other than our Lord Jesus Christ and outside the Catholic religion go expressly against the(se) affirmations of the Gospel, and are explicitly against our Lord Jesus Christ.

Documents coming from the Dutch Bishops' Conference speak of ways of salvation in the non-Christian religions. Absurd. There are no means of salvation outside the Catholic religion founded by our Lord Jesus Christ. Outside the Church there is no salvation. It is a dogma of our faith. Why? Because supernatural grace comes only from the Church. Even those graces which might attain adherents of other religions would come from our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently from His Church, thanks to the prayer of the Church, the mystical spouse of Our Lord who is united to Him and cannot be separated from Him. It is by the intermediary of the Catholic Church that graces are distributed to those who would receive them outside of it.

Undoubtedly, there are souls that are saved and which are not part of the visible structure of the Church, but which belong invisibly to the Church, the mystical body of Christ. The popes have affirmed this. However, undoubtedly this does not occur frequently. The Church must be missionary in order to bring its graces to those who have not received them. If everyone received grace outside the Church, and even if that were by the mediation of the Church, we would not need to be missionaries. It is impossible to be saved by the practice of false religions or by beliefs that are contrary to Church doctrine. It is impossible to be saved by error, by taking a direction opposed to the Holy Ghost, to the Wisdom of God and to the way by which God chose to save us, which is essentially His Incarnation:

Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man hath seen God at any time: the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him (Jn. 1:17-18).

The mystery of the God-Man is great, clearly; but it is absolutely necessary to meditate on it, and to know the reality, the truth, because this is our faith, our whole life and the life of the world.

Nothing is done in the world that does not relate to Our Lord; it is either for Him or against Him, with Him or without Him. Our Lord is the key to the solution of all the problems. There are none here below that are indifferent to Our Lord. Men try in vain to work without reference to Our Lord, but it is impossible because Our Lord is everywhere.1 He is in everything because He created everything; therefore everything is in His hands. Everything belongs to Him, nothing is outside of Him. Men seek to evade Him, but they cannot because everything is His.

To try to construct human history outside of our Lord Jesus Christ is an absurdity. Our Lord is the center of history. Everything was made by Him and for Him 2 and the only happiness of men and mankind is to be united to Our Lord, to live for God by Jesus Christ, because He is God. He has given us the means; this is why He came. St. John says as much in his first epistle, which is also very beautiful:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled, of the word of life (I Jn. 1:1).

1. By His Divine Nature
2. cf. Col 1:16
Extracts from The Mystery of Jesus, by Archbishop Lefebvre, Angelus Press 2000

The Archbishop Betrayed

7/6/2013

The Archbishop’s Mission Betrayed by ServusSpiritusSancti

As a result of the horrendous Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church was handed over to the secular world by the Masonic infiltrators. Similarly, Bishop Fellay nearly handed the SSPX over to the apostates in Rome. Just as the majority of the clergy betrayed Catholic Tradition and Our Lord Jesus Christ during Vatican II, Bishop Fellay has done so as well.

Bishop Fellay has kicked the Society's original mission - formed by the Saintly Archbishop Lefebvre - to the curb, and has formed a new mission that suits his own views. He naturally denies any betrayal of the Archbishop in his interviews, but talk is cheap. Actions speak louder than words, and Bishop Fellay's actions have spoken very loud volume.

In the recent "declaration" of the three Bishops of the Neo-SSPX, they kept speaking of how they will remain faithful to the mission of Archbishop Lefebvre. But do the actions of the Neo-SSPX indicate this? Certainly not. Let's review the facts.

First of all, as pointed out in my post comparing the Archbishop's statements on various matters to Bishop Fellay's, Bishop Fellay does not share the positions of Archbishop Lefebvre on several key positions. His statements on the Jews, Vatican II, and relations with Rome are at complete odds with what Archbishop Lefebvre said. He has never retracted any of these scandalous remarks, and when a quote from the Archbishop is brought up by the Resistance that contradicts what Bishop Fellay is saying, he conveniently pretends that such a quote doesn't exist, or that it is "taken out of context".

Speaking of quotes from Archbishop Lefebvre, another example of Bishop Fellay's betrayal of Archbishop Lefebvre is the fact that, in 2011, Menzingen sued "Editions Saint Remi" for publishing the Archbishop's sermons (Menzingen has a history of resorting to threats of lawsuits to intimidate others). The company had obtained permission from the Archbishop's own brother and sister to distribute his sermons, but Menzingen claimed they owned the rights to his sermons and wouldn't allow anyone else to publish them. As reported by several websites, Menzingen won the case. Editions Saint Remi could have appealed and would have had a good chance at winning the appeal, but they didn't have the funds for lawyers' fees, and so simply let Menzingen win. They were required to pay a $1,500 fee, and could continue to distribute the sermons for a week, but in order to continue doing so after that, they would have had to pay Menzingen $150 per set.

Now, why would Menzingen raise such an objection to someone who had received permission from the Archbishop's own family to publish his sermons, unless they didn't want those sermons to be published at all? Fr. Christian Thouvenot, General Secretary of the Neo-SSPX - the same priest who announced that an expulsion of Bishop Williamson was possible on the DICI website in 2010 - made a threat against another website for distributing the Archbishop's sermons... free of charge!

The Neo-SSPX claims that they own the rights to those sermons, but where is the evidence that Archbishop Lefebvre signed over legal rights to his sermons to the Society's leadership? And even if they do own the rights to them, why are they not publishing them? One is left to believe that they really do not want his sermons published at all, certainly not any sermons that go against what Bishop Fellay is saying or doing.

The other examples of Bishop Fellay's betrayal of Archbishop Lefebvre I have already discussed; GREC, Maximilian Krah, the secular PR firm, his attempt to "regularize" with the modernists in Rome against the clear statements of the Society's founder, etc.

It's not just Bishop Fellay, however, who has betrayed the Archbishop and his mission. The priests who have stood by Bishop Fellay are also guilty. One particular example is Fr. Celier, whose liberal book "Benedict XVI and the Traditionalists" was published and foreworded by a man named "Jean-Luce Maxence", who had made past criticisms against Archbishop Lefebvre and other Traditionalists and even mocked the Archbishop for his condemnation of Masonry. What's really disgusting is that the Society's US District website used an excerpt from his book as a means of how to "interpret the words of Archbishop Lefebvre". It's rather interesting that the Society would quote a book that was published and foreworded by someone who didn't even like the very man they claim to remain faithful to.

Even Bishop Tissier and Bishop de Galaretta are guilty of betrayal to a certain extent. +Galaretta initially sided with +Williamson and +Tissier, but later changed his mind and took Bishop Fellay's side, and now regrets signing the letter of the three Bishops to Bishop Fellay. Bishop Tissier's problem is that he doesn't have the courage and outspokenness of Bishop Williamson. He still speaks out against a deal with Rome (much to the dismay of the Neo-SSPX), though he wishes to remain within the fold of the Neo-SSPX regardless, and even implied that Bishop Williamson should never have been Consecrated. He needs to be speaking out against Bishop Fellay and what he has been doing, not keeping silent.

It is sad that all of these priests have chosen to side with +Fellay in the name of "obedience" (sort of like what happened at Vatican II, right?), rather than speak the truth and remain faithful to the Archbishop's mission, even if it means persecution or expulsion.

The Neo-SSPX is no longer faithful to Archbishop Lefebvre. They paint a new image of him that never existed, portraying him as someone who was "hostile" to sedevacantism, and who would have been open to further negotiations with modernist Rome. The Archbishop Lefebvre portrayed by Menzingen is not at all the man the real Archbishop was. His quotes are often misinterpreted (or totally ignored or even suppressed) by the Society's leadership today, and his mission has most certainly been betrayed by Bishop Fellay and the other priests who support him. Thankfully, the Resistance has been remaining faithful to the Archbishop's mission. As for Bishop Fellay, he will have to answer to God on Judgment Day for betraying not only the Archbishop, but also Catholic Tradition and, therefore, Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church.

God Bless.

ServusSpiritusSancti | July 6, 2013 at 12:17 am | Categories: Traditional Catholic Faith | URL: http://wp.me/p2MjAo-8x

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Consecration Sermon 1988

7/2/2013

The Sermon of His Excellency Archbishop Lefebvre on the occasion of the Episcopal Consecrations

30 June 1988

Ecône, Switzerland

Your Excellency, dear Bishop de Castro Mayer, my most dear friends, my dear brethren,

Behold, here we are gathered for a ceremony which is certainly historic. Let me, first of all, give you some information.

The first might surprise you a little, as it did me. Yesterday evening, a visitor came, sent from the Nunciature in Berne, with an envelope containing an appeal from our Holy Father the Pope, who was putting at my, disposal a car which was supposed to take me to Rome yesterday evening, so that I would not be able to perform these consecrations today. I was told neither for what reason, nor where I had to go! I leave you to judge for yourselves the timeliness and wisdom of such a request.

I went to Rome for many, many days during the past year, even for weeks; the Holy Father did not invite me to come and see him. I would certainly have been glad to see him if some agreement would have been finalized. So here you have the information. I give it to you simply, as I myself came to know it, through the letter from the Nunciature.

Now, some indications concerning the ceremony and some relevant documents regarding its significance.

The future bishops have already sworn in my hands the oath which you find in the little booklet on the ceremony of consecration which some of you have. Thus, this oath has already been pronounced, plus the Anti-Modernist Oath, as it was formerly prescribed for the consecration of bishops, plus the Profession of Faith. They have already taken these oaths and this profession in my hands after the retreat which took place at Sierre during these last days. Do not, therefore, be surprised if the ceremony begins with the interrogations on the Faith, the Faith which the Church asks from those who are to be consecrated.

I also want to let you know that, after the ceremony, you will be able to ask the blessing of the bishops and kiss their rings. It is not the custom in the Church to kiss the hands of a bishop, as one kisses the hands of a newly-ordained priest, as you did yesterday. But the faithful may ask for their blessing and kiss their ring.

Lastly, you have at your disposal at the bookstall some books and flyers which contain all the elements necessary to help you better understand why this ceremony, which is apparently done against the will of Rome, is in no way a schism. We are not schismatics! If an excommunication was pronounced against the bishops of China, who separated themselves from Rome and put themselves under the Chinese government, one very easily understands why Pope Pius XII excommunicated them. There is no question of us separating ourselves from Rome, nor of putting ourselves under a foreign government, nor of establishing a sort of parallel church as the Bishops of Palmar de Troya have done in Spain. They have even elected a pope, formed a college of cardinals… It is out of the question for us to do such things. Far from us be this miserable thought to separate ourselves from Rome!

On the contrary, it is in order to manifest our attachment to Rome that we are performing this ceremony. It is in order to manifest our attachment to the Eternal Rome, to the Pope, and to all those who have preceded these last Popes who, unfortunately since the Second Vatican Council, have thought it their duty to adhere to grievous errors which are demolishing the Church and the Catholic Priesthood.

Thus you will find among these flyers which are put at your disposal, an admirable study done by Professor Georg May, President of the Seminary of Canon Law in the University of Mayence in Germany, who marvelously explains why we are in a case of necessity: necessity to come and help your souls, to help you! Your applause a while ago was, I think, not a purely temporal manifestation; it was rather a spiritual manifestation, expressing your joy to have at last Catholic bishops and priests who are dedicated to the salvation of your souls, to giving to your souls the Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, through good doctrine, through the Sacraments, through the Faith, through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. You need this Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ to go to heaven. This Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ is disappearing everywhere in the Conciliar Church. They are following roads which are not Catholic roads: they simply lead to apostasy.

This is why we do this ceremony. Far be it from me to set myself up as pope! I am simply a bishop of the Catholic Church who is continuing to transmit Catholic doctrine. I think, and this will certainly not be too far off, that you will be able to engrave on my tombstone these words of St. Paul: “Tradidi quod et accepi-I have transmitted to you what I have received,” nothing else. I am just the postman bringing you a letter. I did not write the letter, the message, this Word of God. God Himself wrote it; Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself gave it to us. As for us, we just handed it down, through these dear priests here present and through all those who have chosen to resist this wave of apostasy in the Church, by keeping the Eternal Faith and giving it to the faithful. We are just carriers of this Good News, of this Gospel which Our Lord Jesus Christ gave to us, as well as of the means of sanctification: the Holy Mass, the true Holy Mass, the true Sacraments which truly give the spiritual life.

It seems to me, my dear brethren, that I am hearing the voices of all these Popes – since Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Benedict XV, Pius XI, Pius XII – telling us: “Please, we beseech you, what are you going to do with our teachings, with our predications, with the Catholic Faith? Are you going to abandon it? Are you going to let it disappear from this earth? Please, please, continue to keep this treasure which we have given you. Do not abandon the faithful, do not abandon the Church! Continue the Church! Indeed, since the Council, what we condemned in the past the present Roman authorities have embraced and are professing. How is it possible? We have condemned them: Liberalism, Communism., Socialism, Modernism, Zionism. All the errors which we have condemned are now professed, adopted and supported by the authorities of the Church. Is it possible? Unless you do something to continue this Tradition of the Church which we have given to you, all of it shall disappear. Souls shall be lost.”

Thus, we find ourselves in a case of necessity. We have done all we could, trying to help Rome to understand that they had to come back to the attitudes of the holy Pius XII and of all his predecessors. Bishop de Castro Mayer and myself have gone to Rome, we have spoken, we have sent letters, several times to Rome. We have tried by these talks, by all these means, to succeed in making Rome understand that, since the Council and since aggiornamento, this change which has occurred in the Church is not Catholic, is not in conformity to the doctrine of all times. This ecumenism and all these errors, this collegiality – all this is contrary to the Faith of the Church, and is .in the process of destroying the Church.

This is why we are convinced that, by the act of these consecrations today, we are obeying the call of these Popes and as a consequence the call of God, since they represent Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Church.

“And why, Archbishop, have you stopped these discussions which seemed to have had a certain degree of success?” Well, precisely because, at the same time that I gave my signature to the Protocol, the envoy of Cardinal Ratzinger gave me a note in which I was asked to beg pardon for my errors. But if I am in error, if I teach error, it is clear that I must be brought back to the truth in the minds of those who sent me this note to sign. “That I might recognize my errors” means that, if you recognize your errors we will help you to return to the truth. (What is this truth for them if not the truth of Vatican II, the truth of the Conciliar Church?) Consequently, it is clear that the only truth that exists today for the Vatican is the conciliar truth, the spirit of the Council, the spirit of Assisi. That is the truth of today. But we will have nothing to do with this for anything in the world! .

That is why, taking into account the strong will of the present Roman authorities to reduce Tradition to naught, to gather the world to the spirit of Vatican II and the spirit of Assisi, we have preferred to withdraw ourselves and to say that we could not continue. It was not possible. We would have evidently been under the authority of Cardinal Ratzinger, President of the Roman Commission, which would have directed us; we were putting ourselves into his hands, and consequently putting ourselves into the hands of those who wish to draw us into the spirit of the Council and the spirit of Assisi. This was simply not possible.

This is why I sent a letter to the Pope, saying to him very clearly: “We simply cannot accept this spirit and proposals, despite all the desires which we have to be in full union with you. Given this new spirit which now rules in Rome and which you wish to communicate to us, we prefer to continue in Tradition; to keep Tradition while waiting for Tradition to regain its place at Rome, while waiting for Tradition to reassume its place in the Roman authorities, in their minds.” This will last for as long as the Good Lord has foreseen.

It is not for me to know when Tradition will regain its rights at Rome, but I think it is my duty to provide the means of doing that which I shall call “Operation Survival,” operation survival for Tradition. Today, this day, is Operation Survival. If I had made this deal with Rome, by continuing with the agreements we had signed, and by putting them into practice, I would have performed “Operation Suicide.” There was no choice, we must live! That is why today, by consecrating these bishops, I am convinced that I am continuing to keep Tradition alive, that is to say, the Catholic Church.

You well know, my dear brethren, that there can be no priests without bishops. When God calls me – no doubt this will be before long – from whom would these seminarians receive the Sacrament of Orders? From conciliar bishops, who, due to their doubtful intentions, confer doubtful sacraments? This is not possible. Who are the bishops who have truly kept Tradition and the Sacraments such as the Church has conferred them for twenty centuries until Vatican II? They are Bishop de Castro Mayer and myself. I cannot change that. That is how it is. Hence, many seminarians have entrusted themselves to us, they sensed that here was the continuity of the Church, the continuity of’ Tradition. And they came to our seminaries, despite all the difficulties that they have encountered, in order to receive a true ordination to the Priesthood, to say the true Sacrifice of Calvary, the true Sacrifice of the Mass, and to give you the true Sacraments, true doctrine, the true catechism. This is the goal of these seminaries.

So I cannot, in good conscience, leave these seminarians orphaned. Neither can I leave you orphans by dying without providing for the future. That is not possible. It would be contrary to my duty.

This is why we have chosen, with the grace of God, priests from our Society who have seemed to us to be the most apt, whilst being in circumstances and in functions which permit them more easily to fulfill their episcopal ministry, to give Confirmation to your children, and to be able to confer ordinations in our various seminaries. Thus I believe that – with the grace of God, we, Bishop de Castro Mayer and myself, by these consecrations, will have given to Tradition the means to continue, given the means to Catholics who desire to remain within the Church of their parents, their grandparents, of their ancestors. They built churches with beautiful altars, often destroyed and replaced by a table, thus manifesting the radical change which has come about since the Council regarding the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass which is the heart of the Church and the purpose of the priesthood. Thus we wish to thank you for having come in such numbers to support us in the accomplishment of this ceremony.

We turn to the Blessed Virgin Mary. You well know, my dear brethren, one must have told you of Leo XIII’s prophetic vision revealing that one day “the See of Peter would become the seat of iniquity.” He said it in one of his exorcisms, called “The Exorcism of Leo XIIL” Has it come about today? Is it tomorrow? I do not know. But in any case it has been foretold. Iniquity may quite simply be error. Error is iniquity: to no longer profess the Faith of all time, the Catholic Faith, is a grave error. If there ever was an iniquity, it is this. And I really believe that there has never been a greater iniquity in the Church than Assisi, which is contrary to the First Commandment of God and the First Article of the Creed. It is incredible that something like that could have ever taken place in the Church, in the eyes of the whole Church – how humiliating! We have never undergone such a humiliation! You will be able to find all of this in Fr. LeRoux’s booklet which has been especially published in order to give you information on the present situation in Rome.

It was not only the good Pope Leo XIII who said these things, but Our Lady prophesied them as well. Just recently, the priest who takes care of the priory of Bogota, Colombia, brought me a book concerning the apparition of Our Lady of “Buon Suceso,” – of “Good Fortune,” to whom a large church in Quito, Ecuador, was dedicated. They were received by a nun shortly after the Council of Trent, so you see, quite a few centuries ago. This apparition is thoroughly recognized by Rome and the ecclesiastical authorities; a magnificent church was built for the Blessed Virgin Mary wherein the faithful of Ecuador venerate with great devotion a picture of Our Lady, whose face was made miraculously. The artist was in the process of painting it when he found the face of the Holy Virgin miraculously formed. And Our Lady prophesied for the twentieth century, saying explicitly that during the nineteenth century and most of the twentieth century, errors would become more and more widespread in Holy Church, placing the Church in a catastrophic situation. Morals would become corrupt and the Faith would disappear. It seems impossible not to see it happening today.

I excuse myself for continuing this account of the apparition but she speaks of a prelate who will absolutely oppose this wave of apostasy and impiety – saving the priesthood by forming good priests. I do not say that prophecy refers to me. You may draw your own conclusions. I was stupefied when reading these lines but I cannot deny them, since they are recorded and deposited in the archives of this apparition.

Of course, you well know the apparitions of Our Lady at La Salette, where she says that Rome will lose the Faith, that there will be an “eclipse” at Rome; an eclipse, see what Our Lady means by this.

And finally, closer to us, the secret of Fatima. Without a doubt, the Third Secret of Fatima must have made an allusion to this darkness which has invaded Rome, this darkness which has invaded the world since the Council. And surely it is because of this, without a doubt, that John XXIII judged it better not to publish the Secret: it would have been necessary to take measures, such steps as he possibly felt himself incapable of doing, e.g., completely changing the orientations which he was beginning .to take in view of the Council, and for the Council.

There are the facts upon which, I think, we can lean.

We place ourselves in God’s providence. We are convinced that God knows what He is doing. Cardinal Gagnon visited us twelve years after the suspension: after twelve years of being spoken of as outside of the communion of Rome, as rebels and dissenters against the Pope, his visit took place. He himself recognized that what we have been doing is just what is necessary for the reconstruction of the Church. The Cardinal even assisted pontifically at the Mass which I celebrated on December 8, 1987, for the renewal of the promises of our seminarians. I was supposedly suspended and, yet, after twelve years, I was practically given a clean slate. They said we have done well. Thus we did well to resist! I am convinced that we are in the same circumstances today. We are performing an act which apparently… and unfortunately the media will not assist us in the good sense. The headlines will, of course, be “Schism,” “Excommunication!” as much as they want to – and, yet, we are convinced that all these accusations of ;which we are the object, all penalties of which we are the object, are null, absolutely null and void, and of which we will fake no account. just as I took no account of the suspension, and ended up by being congratulated by the Church and by progressive churchmen, so likewise in several years – I do not know how many, only the Good Lord knows how many years it will take for Tradition to find – its rights in Rome – we will be embraced by the Roman authorities, who will thank us for having maintained the Faith in our seminaries, in our families, in civil societies, in our countries, and in our monasteries and our religious houses, for the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls.

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

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The Sermon of His Excellency Archbishop Lefebvre on the occasion of the Episcopal Consecrations

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