Category: Sspx

A Letter of entreaty to Fr. Morgan UK

5/23/2013

A Letter of Entreaty to Fr. Morgan and the Clergy of the British District

21st May, 2013

(St. Godric; Bl. John Haile)

Dear Fr. Morgan, Dear Fathers,

We beg of you in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, high priest and lover of souls, in the name of his Blessed Mother, in the name of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, and in the name of all the wonderful, holy ideals which led you to answer the call to become a shepherd and a lover of souls – aid our souls now, in our moment of need.

The Subversion of the Society of St. Pius X
For some time now, we have felt betrayed by one portion of the SSPX and let down and abandoned by the lack of response from another portion. The leadership of the SSPX are wilfully pursuing a new direction and a new agenda, remaking the Society in their own image with reckless disregard for the souls which Divine Providence has placed in their care. Every month, sometimes it seems every week, some new, fresh piece of evidence emerges of the liberalism at the top which is being forced downwards upon the lower members and faithful of the Society. We have heard not one single convincing explanation, nothing to put our minds at rest, although it is not uncommon for Menzingen or DICI to issue “clarifications” or for Bishop Fellay to claim that his words have been misrepresented in some way.

What concerns us especially is that we see what amounts to a new direction officially enshrined in the SSPX. Recently we have seen proof of the liberalism of Bishop Fellay in the form of a modernistic “Doctrinal Declaration”, a declaration of the his own doctrinal position, presented to Rome with his signature as supposedly representing us also. Amongst other things, we are now able to see that Bishop Fellay accepts the legitimacy of the New Mass which Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPX always held to be illegitimate; he accepts the idea of collegiality which Archbishop Lefebvre fought against at the council since it undermines any previous notion of the Church's Magisterium, replacing it with a sort of 'teaching democracy' in the form of the modern Bishops; he accepts the 'hermeneutic of continuity' and the idea that Tradition and the revolution can be thought of as consistent with one another; he accepts all of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which John-Paul II said was Vatican II translated into law, and which includes Canon 844 which provides for the giving of the sacraments to non Catholics; he states explicitly that diabolical modern ideas such as ecumenism and religious liberty are reconcilable with the true teaching of the Church and with Tradition; and finally he also explicitly states that Vatican II “enlightens and deepens... the life and doctrine of the Church.”

Father, you can see as clearly as we that this Doctrinal Statement is a serious insult to Almighty God, and a total betrayal of the mission of the Society founded by Archbishop Lefebvre. It is also a personal betrayal of every soul who has reposed confidence in the SSPX and worked to build it up and strengthen it, and of course a personal insult to the Archbishop who, far from accepting the New Religion of the conciliar church, declared that it “begins in heresy and ends in heresy, even if not all of its acts are formally heretical.” Let me remind you, Father, that this document in question is not a throwaway remark, a bad translation, or an unfortunate choice of words made in the heat of the moment – it took months to prepare, and once handed over two months were waited to see whether it had been accepted or not. This document, furthermore, is a Doctrinal Declaration: its purpose is to declare doctrine. If one declares something, surely one declares it in public and not in secret? How can one have 'secret doctrine'? Furthermore, since it is a declaration of doctrine, i.e. Bishop Fellay's “Declaration of what I believe”, it is perfect nonsense for him to say that he has “withdrawn it” - in what meaningful sense can one possibly “withdraw” doctrine? If Bishop Fellay was prepared to believe those things recently, but claims to have “withdrawn” his secret document now that it has come to light, then we can take it that he as good as believes them still today. Since he has been caught betraying the Society, it would be “optimistic” to the point of reckless irresponsibility simply to pretend to ourselves that he is one of us once again. Neither he nor any of his allies can be trusted, and we think that if you are honest with yourselves you must admit that.

How are we to remain faithful to Tradition?
Taken together with all the other signs of the past year, and especially the General Chapter's scandalous “three conditions” (and “three desirable conditions – which in effect amounts to “three things we are not prepared to fight for, and are thus quite happy to lose”) which took the revolution in the SSPX and the Superior General's disobedience to the 2006 Chapter and legitimised it and made it the official position of the Society – what we now see is the revolution inside the SSPX fully established in power. Ideas not personalities are what concern us most. And in the persons of Bishop Fellay, Fr. Pfluger, and a large number of Superiors and members of the General Chapter we see new ideas which we abhor, and with which we wish nought to do. We do not wish to be underneath these clerics, whose ideas and doctrinal position are so much at variance with our own, and we do not wish there to be any risk or danger to the Faith by continuing under priests with whom we disagree. We cannot help but be reminded of the simple but insightful words of Archbishop Lefebvre: it is the superiors who form the subjects, not the subjects who form the superiors.

It is clear to us that the SSPX is now a sinking ship. The men who hold authority over it are the problem, and yet they cannot be removed from their positions (the only real opportunity to do so would have been at the last General Chapter). The very thing on account of which Almighty God blessed the SSPX, its faithful adherence to Tradition and its determination not to compromise with modernism, has been officially jettisoned and is now gone. Its absence is the one essential difference between the SSPX of yesterday and the SSPX of today. The good priests opposed to compromise who remain inside the SSPX are now good in spite of their being in the SSPX and not because of it. Since you cannot serve two masters, you must ask yourselves this: to which SSPX do you wish to remain loyal? Although you may have been left comparatively unmolested by Menzingen thus far, you cannot be unaware of what is happening all around the world in the Society. Which being the case, it is now only a matter of time: sooner or later if you do not choose to remain traditional at the cost of SSPX membership, you will find that you chose to remain SSPX members at the cost of your fidelity to Tradition.

Fathers, please consider: at your judgement Almighty God will not judge you faithful servants on account of what you said or thought in secret, but rather what you spoke openly and what actions you did in public. We your faithful have waited now for a year since the liberalism became apparent. We did not wish to act rashly. We have been giving you an opportunity to lead us. If, however, you will not do so, then we must reluctantly part company. It is clear that the situation can only become worse, and in such cicrumstances we can see no alternative but to start again. We can be confident for the future, however, since the only thing being begun again would be the administrative structure. The Faith remains, and that is what matters. If we do the right thing, everything else will be taken care of: God helps those who help themselves, as the saying goes. We beg and implore you to come to our aid and not to abandon souls which need you, especially not on account of a false obedience to superiors who regard you as, at best, a problem and with whom you will have increasingly little in common.

God bless you and reward you for your years of work caring for our souls.

Gregory Taylor
Waltraud Taylor
Olivia Bevan
Jeremy Bevan
Susan Warren
Alun Rowland
Anna Thompson
Michael Morley
Paul Whitburn
Alex Williams
Albrecht Maria Bastian
Benedikt Maria Bastian
Caecilia Maria Bastian
Daniel Starck
Clare Starck
Tamara I. Martinez
Antonio VitielloPeter Biosah
Paul AitkenAnnie AitkenMary Fryd

Buy Books on Archbishop Lefebvre

Open Letter to Priests Of Society of SSPX

5/18/2013

28 March 2013

Reverend and dear Fathers,

The recent publication of the Doctrinal Declaration, addressed by the General Council of the Society of St Pius X to the Church authorities in Rome on April 15 last year, confirms our worst fears. We waited for nearly a year to know what it contains. It proves once and for all that the present leadership of the Society of St Pius X means to lead it away from the direction set for it by Archbishop Lefebvre, and towards the ideas and ideals of the Second Vatican Council.

However busy you may be with the daily ministry, this is bound to concern you because it means that the souls under your care are, through you, coming under Superiors meaning to lead them and yourselves towards, even into, the great apostasy of modern times. We recall that it is Superiors who mould their subjects and not the other way around – have we not observed a number of good Society priests, one after another, giving up the fight for the Faith as we know Archbishop Lefebvre led it, and instead going with the flow, with the strong and very different current flowing for some years now from the top of the Society downwards ?

Detailed analysis will confirm the danger of each of the Declaration’s ten paragraphs, as outlined only briefly below:--

I Fidelity promised to the “Catholic Church” and to the “Roman Pontiff” can easily be misdirected today towards the Conciliar Church as such, and to the Conciliar Pontiffs. Distinctions are needed to avoid confusion.

II Acceptance of teachings of the Magisterium in accordance with Lumen Gentium # 25 can easily be understood, especially in conjunction with Rome’s 1989 Profession of Faith which is mentioned in a footnote of the Declaration, as requiring acceptance of Vatican II doctrines.

III,1 Acceptance of Vatican II teaching on the College of Bishops as contained in Lumen Gentium, chapter III, is, despite the “Nota Praevia”, a significant step towards accepting Conciliar collegiality and the democratisation of the Church.

III,2 Recognition of the Magisterium as sole authentic interpreter of Revelation runs a grave risk of submitting Tradition to the Council, especially when the interpretation of any break between them is automatically to be rejected (cf. III,5 below).

III,3 The definition of Tradition as “the living transmission of Revelation” is highly ambiguous, and its ambiguity is only confirmed by the vague words about the Church, and by the quotation from the equally ambiguous Dei Verbum #8, which follow.

III,4 The proposition that Vatican II should “throw light” on Tradition by “deepening” it and “making it more explicit”, is thoroughly Hegelian (since when did contradictories explain and not exclude one another ?), and it risks falsifying Tradition by twisting it to fit the multiple falsehoods of the Council.

III,5 The statement that the novelties of Vatican II must be interpreted in the light of Tradition, but that no interpretation implying any break between the two is acceptable, is madness (All shirts are to be blue, but any non-blue shirt must be taken to be blue !). This madness is none other than that of Benedict XVI’s “Hermeneutic of continuity”.

III,6 Giving credit to the novelties of Vatican II as being legitimate matter of theological debate is gravely to underestimate their harmfulness. They are fit only to be condemned.

III,7 The judgment that the new sacramental Rites were legitimately promulgated is gravely misleading. The New Order of Mass especially is much too harmful to the common good of the Church to be a true law.

III,8 The “promise to respect” as Church law the New Code of Canon Law is to respect a number of supposed laws directly contrary to Church doctrine.

Reverend Fathers, whoever studies these ten paragraphs in the original text can only conclude that their author or authors have given up the Archbishop’s fight for Tradition, and have gone over in their minds to Vatican II. Do you wish yourself and your flock to be moulded by such Superiors ?

Nor let it be said that the first two and last three of the ten paragraphs are broadly taken from the Archbishop’s own Protocol of May 5, 1988, so that the Declaration is faithful to him. It is well known that on May 6 he repudiated that Protocol because he himself recognized that it made too many concessions for the Society to be able to continue defending Tradition.

Another error is to say that the danger is over because the Declaration has been “withdrawn” by the Superior General. The Declaration is the poisoned fruit of what has become a liberal mind-set at the top of the Society, and that mind-set has not been recognized, let alone retracted.

A third misconception is to say that since no agreement has been signed with the apostates of Rome, then there is no further problem. The problem is less the agreement than the desire of any agreement that will grant to the Society official recognition, and that desire is still very much there. Following the whole modern world and the Conciliar Church, the Society’s leadership seems to have lost its grip on the primacy of truth, especially Catholic Truth.

Reverend Fathers, “What cannot be cured must be endured.” Blind leaders are a punishment from God. However, the least that you can do about this disastrous Declaration is to study it for yourselves with everything that led up to it, otherwise you will lose your Society without realizing it, just as the mass of Catholics lost their Church with Vatican II, and did not realize it. Then having made the disaster clear in your own mind, you must tell the truth to your Society flock, namely the danger in which your Superiors are placing their faith and therewith their eternal salvation.

To all of us in that Society which Archbishop Lefebvre made into a worldwide fortress of the Faith, Our Lord is now putting the question of John, VI, 67: “Will you also leave me ?”

To any and all of you I gladly impart the episcopal blessing of your servant in Christ,

+Richard Williamson, Nova Friburgo, Maundy Thursday, 2013.

Beware of the Error of the 50's

5/16/2013

As the world around us grows more and more naughty, with the devil being given, as a punishment for our naughtiness, more and more power to shut down whatever is true, just, holy, of good report, so candles of goodness, without in themselves increasing in power or light, nevertheless stand out more and more, and we should be correspondingly more grateful for their survival. Who can tell how soon they may be extinguished?

Thus when Catholics attending a true Mass run into any of the difficulties surrounding its celebration, they can become impatient, for instance, at lack of unity amongst all the priests celebrating the true Mass. Such impatience may be justified, at least in past, but would not such Catholics be wiser today to be grateful for any and every single true Mass celebrated? We may not yet be in those days when the sacrifice is going to be taken away (Dan 8:11), but if things continue on their present course, those days may soon be here, and then with what longing may those Catholics not look back on a single one of those back-room Masses said in however unfavorable circumstances?

It is called being grateful for small mercies, or, counting one's blessings. Similarly wise, in my opinion, is anybody who does not pin too great hopes on the future of the Society of St. Pius X. Through it no doubt immense gifts and graces have come to many of us in the past and are still coming in the present, but nothing gives us the right to count on their continuation in the future. On the contrary, according to all normal expectations, the more powerful the current of apostasy sweeping downstream Church and world to their perdition, the more irresistible the current becomes, and the more likely it is that the still resisting Society will be swept away as well.

Please, these lines are being written before the Society's General Chapter of July 11 to 14, so they have nothing to do with any particular decision that will be taken there. They are based on entirely general considerations, for instance that every Catholic group or organization has a structure of authority, which authority must ultimately derive from the Vicar of Christ, the Pope. When therefore the Pope repudiates a Catholic organization, as Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II have effectively repudiated the Society of St. Pius X, then that organization is submitted to a severe strain ....

Here is another dark thought: in the 1950's the Catholic Church was holding out magnificently against the world, conversions were multiplying, the intellectuals were rejecting Communism, the whole world seemed ready to lie down at the feet of the Church, and what happened? In the 1960's it was the Church which at Vatican Two collapsed at the feet of the world! Today the Society of St. Pius X is holding out magnificently against the false church, intellectuals are rejecting the Novus Ordo, conversions to Tradition are beginning .... Let us beware of that moment when all the church seems about to lay down arms at the feet of the Society! Exile is painful, the combat is wearisome, the world has its attractions ....

Now — brighter thoughts! — of course God is God, God is the Lord of Life and death, God can preserve or destroy what He will, God will never abandon His Catholic Church nor leave His sheep without shepherd, so He can easily provide Society members with special graces to ensure the Society's survival until such time as He inspires a Pope not only to give the surviving Society his approval, but also maybe to lean on the Society for support in reconstructing the Church.

Such a scenario is intrinsically possible, even, without any vanity on our part, plausible. For instance Rome no doubt relied on Archbishop Lefebvre's death in 1991 to provoke the disintegration of the Society, but for over three years Rome has been disappointed. Similarly, right now Rome must be hoping that the General Chapter will sow germs of division or disunity between Society members, but you readers have been praying, and the Lord God can all the more easily grant special graces of unity if true fidelity to Himself was the original reason — and it was — for the Papal disapproval putting that unity under strain in the first place.

Nevertheless, while the scenario of special graces of survival for the Society until the recovery of the Pope, is a scenario possible and even plausible, it is neither necessary nor certain, and that is why we need to be wisely grateful. For instance, humanly speaking, it is wholly possible that the devil of discord or even the maneuvers of Rome will get in amongst Society members — Rome is still eagerly angling for individual defections of Society priests. Now may Heaven prevent that any of us should through any fault of his own cause or promote such discord, but regardless of our good will, the pressures are intense, the confusion is great, temptations are multiple, the devil is cunning and human nature by itself remains weak.

So the possibility of the Society stumbling and falling before such time as God brings the Pope back to his Catholic senses remains a possibility which must be kept in mind. What it amounts to is no more than what any Catholic should know: in the Catholic Church itself I have an absolute, faith, hope and trust, because the Catholic Church enjoys Our Lord's own guarantee of survival and protection ("Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it" (Mt XVI, 18); "Going, teach all nations... and behold I am with you all days, even to the end of the world" (Mt. XXVIII, 20)). But in all other institutions I have only a relative faith, hope and trust, relative to their fidelity to the Catholic Church, because within that church there are many institutions like the Society of St. Pius X that have come with time, and with time have gone. Upon the Catholic Church I absolutely depend to save my soul, upon the Society of St. Pius X only relatively. So for as long as the Society seems to be the instrument God has given me to serve the Church, I mean to serve the Society with all my heart and soul, but the Society remains in relation to the Church a means to an end.

That is why for each ceremony of ordinations like those of a week ago I am immensely grateful, and for each month that the Seminary can continue to prepare young men to be ordained, and for each year that the Society of St. Pius X is still there to sustain its seminaries, and yet if any or all of these gifts from God were to crack or perish, I would not be entirely surprised nor would my Catholic Faith be weakened. At the beginning of the Church Militant Jesus Christ led his followers through the catacombs and persecution out into the open, and at the end of the Church Militant He may well lead them from the tent in the open field through persecution back to the catacombs. If it comes to that, and if we make it to the catacombs, for many of us it will certainly not have been without the Society but back in the catacombs we may have to do without the Society.

Ah, dear Society! Dear Seminary! Dear seminarians? Regularly I tell them that as Society of St. Pius X seminarians they are on a hiding to nothing, that they have everything to lose and nothing to gain; that the whole world is against them; that the whole world is going to hell in a hand-basket; that the Society of St. Pius X could easily perish; that the future is dark and where there is no gloom it is full of doom. Do you know, I do believe that if any of my dire forebodings actually came true, seminarians would be pleasantly surprised!

Letter from Winona 1994

SSPX deal with Rome

5/13/2013

“We would have to re-enter this Conciliar Church in order, supposedly, to make it Catholic. That is a complete illusion. It is not the subjects that make the superiors, but the superiors who make the subjects… Amongst the whole Roman curia, amongst all the world’s bishops who are progressives, I would have been completely swamped. I would have been able to do nothing… [As for the Pope appointing conservative bishops] I don’t think it is a true return to Tradition. Just as in a fight when the troops are going a little too far ahead and one holds them back, so they are slightly putting the brakes on the impulse of Vatican II because the supporters of the council are going to far… the supposedly conservative bishops are wholly supportive of the council and of the liturgical reforms… No, all of that is tactics, which you have to use in any fight. You have to avoid excesses… [Asked about signs of benevolence to Tradition] There are plenty of signs showing us that what you are talking about is simply exceptional and temporary… So I do not think it is opportune to try contacting Rome, I think we must still wait. Wait, unfortunately, for the situation to get still worse on their side. But up till now, they do not want to recognize the fact… That is why what can look like a concession is in reality merely a maneuver to separate us from the largest number of faithful possible. This is the perspective in which they seem to be always giving a little more and even going very far. We must absolutely convince our faithful that it is no more than a maneuver, that it is dangerous to put oneself into the hands of the conciliar bishops and Modernist Rome. It is the greatest danger threatening our people. If we have struggled for twenty years to avoid the conciliar errors, it was not in order, now, to put ourselves into the hands of those professing these errors. (Archbishop Lefebvre, Interview, Fideliter, 1989)

“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)

“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)

True and False obedience Part 3 of 4

5/13/2013

    In the Diocese of Campos in Brazil, practically all the clergy have been driven out of the churches after the departure of Bishop Castro-Mayer, because they were not willing to abandon the Mass of all time which they celebrated there until recently.

    Division affects the smallest manifestations of piety. In Val-de-Marne, the diocese got the police to eject twenty-five Catholics who used to recite the Rosary in a church which had been deprived of a priest for a long period of years. In the diocese of Metz, the bishops brought in the Communist mayor to cancel the loan of a building to a group of traditionalists. In Canada six of the faithful were sentenced by a Court, which is permitted by the law of that country to deal with this kind of matter, for insisting on receiving Holy Communion on their knees. The Bishop of Antigonish had licensed them of "deliberately disturbing the order and the dignity of religious service." The judge gave the "disturbers" a conditional discharge for six months! According to the Bishop, Christians are forbidden to bend the knee before God! Last year, the pilgrimage of young people to Chartres ended with a Mass in the Cathedral gardens because the Mass of St. Pius V was banned from the Cathedral itself. A fortnight later, the doors were thrown open for a spiritual concert in the course of which dances were performed by a former Carmelite nun.

    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. A typical example is furnished by the "aggiornamento" of the religious societies. By obedience, monks and nuns are made to disobey the laws and constitutions of their founders, which they swore to observe when they made their profession. Obedience in this case should have been a categorical refusal. Even legitimate authority cannot command a reprehensible and evil act. Nobody can oblige anyone to change his monastic vows into simple promises, just as nobody can make us become Protestants or modernists. 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."

    If we were more resolute on this subject, we would avoid coming to the point of gradually absorbing heresies. At the beginning of the Sixteenth Century the English underwent an experience of the kind we are living through, but with the difference that it began with a schism. In all other respects the similarities are astonishing and should give us cause to ponder. The new religion which was to take the name "Anglicanism"
started with an attack on the Mass, personal confession and priestly celibacy. Henry VIII, although he had taken the enormous responsibility of separating his people from Rome, rejected the suggestions that were put to him, but a year after his death a statute authorised the use of English for the celebration of the Mass. Processions were forbidden and a new order of service was imposed, the "Communion Service" in which there was no longer an Offertory. To reassure Christians another statute forbade all sorts of changes, whereas a third allowed priests to get rid of the statues of the saints and of the Blessed Virgin in the churches. Venerable works of art were sold to traders, just as today they go to antique dealers and flea-markets.

PART 4

True and False obedience Part 4 of 4

5/12/2013

Only a few bishops pointed out that the Communion Service infringed the dogma of the Real Presence by saying that Our Lord gives us His body and blood spritually. The Confiteor, translated into the vernacular, was recited at the same time by the celebrant and the faithful and served as an absolution. The Mass was trans formed into a meal or Communion. But even clearheaded bishops eventually accepted the new Prayer Book in order to maintain peace and unity. It is for exactly the same reasons that the post-Conciliar Church wants to impose on us the Novus Ordo. The English bishops in the Sixteenth Century affirmed that the Mass was a "memorial"! A sustained propaganda introduced Lutheran views into the minds of the faithful. Preachers had to be approved by the Government.

During the same period the Pope was only referred to as the "Bishop of Rome". He was no longer the father but the brother of the other bishops and in this instance, the brother of the King of England who had made himself head of the national church. Cranmer's Prayer Book was composed by mixing parts of the Greek liturgy with parts of Luther's liturgy. How can we not be reminded of Mgr. Bugnini drawing up the so-called Mass of Paul VI with the collaboration of six Protestant "observers" attached as experts to the Concilium for the reform of the liturgy? The Prayer Book begins with these words, "The Supper and Holy Communion, commonly called Mass...", which foreshadows the notorious Article 7 of the Institutio Generalis of the New Missal, revived by the Lourdes Eucharistic Congress in 1981: "The Supper of the Lord, otherwise call the Mass ...". The destruction of the sacred, to which I have already referred, also formed part of the Anglican reform. The words of the Canon were required to be spoken in a loud voice, as happens in the "Eucharists" of the present day.

The Prayer Book was also approved by the bishops "to preserve the internal unity of the Kingdom." Priests who continued to say the "Old Mass" incurred penalties ranging from loss of income to removal pure and simple, with life imprisonment for further offences. We have to be grateful that these days they do not put tradionalist priests in prison.

Tudor England, led by its pastors, slid into heresy without realising it, by accepting change under the pretext of adapting to the historical circumstances of the time. Today the whole of Christendom is in danger of taking the same road. Have you thought that even if we who are of a certain age run a smaller risk, children and younger seminarians brought up in new catechisms, experimental psychology and sociology, without a trace of dogmatic or moral theology, canon law or Church history, are educated in a faith which is not the true one and take for granted the new-Protestant notions with which they are indoctrinated? What will tomorrow's religion be if we do not resist? You will be tempted to say: "But what can we do about it? It is a bishop who says this or that. Look, this document comes from the Catechetical Commission or some other official commission."

That way there is nothing left for you but to lose your faith. But you do not have the right to react in that way. St. Paul has warned us: "Even if an angel from Heaven came to tell you anything other than what I have taught you, do not listen to him."

Such is the secret of true obedience.

True and False obedience Part 2 of 4

5/12/2013

    In the first half of the Fifth Century, St. Vincent of Lerins, who was a soldier before consecrating himself to God and acknowledged having been "tossed for a long time on the sea of the world before finding shelter in the harbour of faith", spoke thus about the development of dogma: "Will there be no religious advances in Christ's Church? Yes, certainly, there will be some very important ones, of such a sort as to constitute progress in the faith and not change. What matters is that in the course of ages knowledge, understanding and wisdom grow in abundance and in depth, in each and every individual as in the churches; provided always that there is identity of dogma and continuity of thought". Vincent, who had experienced the shock of heresies, gives a rule of conduct which still holds good after fifteen hundred years: "What should the Catholic Christian therefore do if some part of the Church arrives at the point of detaching itself from the universal communion and the universal faith? What else can he do but prefer the general body which is healthy to the gangrenous and corrupted limb? And if some new contagion strives to poison, not just a small part of the Church but the whole Church at once, then again his great concern will be to attach himself to Antiquity which obviously cannot any more be seduced by any deceptive novelty."
    In the Rogation-tide litanies the Church teaches us to say: "We beseech thee O Lord, maintain in thy holy religion the Sovereign Pontiff and all the orders of ecclesiastical hierarchy." This means that such a disaster could very will happen.
    In the Church there is no law or jurisdiction which can impose on a Christian a diminution of his faith. All the faithful can and should resist whatever interferes with their faith, supported by the catechism of their childhood. If they are faced with an order putting their faith in danger of corruption, there is an overriding duty to disobey.
    It is because we judge that our faith is endangered by the post-conciliar reforms and tendencies, that we have the duty to disobey and keep the Tradition. Let us add this, that the greatest service we can render to the Church and to the successor of Peter is to reject the reformed and liberal Church. Jesus Christ, Son of God made man, is neither liberal nor reformable. On two occasions I have heard emissaries of the Holy See say to me: "The social Kingdom of Our Lord is no longer possible in our times and we must ultimately accept the plurality of religions." This is exactly what they have said to me.
    Well, I am not of that religion. I do not accept that new religion. It is a liberal, modernist religion which has its worship, its priests, its faith, its catechism, its ecumenical Bible translated jointly by Catholics, Jews, Protestants and Anglicans, all things to all men, pleasing everybody by frequently sacrificing the interpretation of the Magisterium. We do not accept this ecumencal Bible. There is the Bible of God; it is His Word which we have not the right to mix with the words of men.
    When I was a child the Church everywhere had the same faith, the same sacraments and the same Sacrifice of the Mass. If anyone had told me then that it would be changed, I would not have believed him. Throughout the breadth of Christendom we prayed to God in the same way. The new liberal and modernist religion has sown division.
    Christians are divided within the same family because of this confusion which has established itself; they no longer go to the same Mass and they no longer read the same books. Priests no longer know what to do; either they obey blindly what their superiors impose on them, and lose to some degree the faith of their childhood and youth,renouncing the promises they made when they took the Anti-Modernist Oath at the moment of their ordination; or on the other hand they resist, but with Unfeeling of separating themselves from the Pope, who is our father and the Vicar of Christ. In both cases, what a heartbreak! Many priests have died of sorrow before their time.
    How many more have been forced to abandon the parishes where for years they had practised their ministry, victims of open persecution by their hierarchy in spite of the support of the faithful whose pastor was being torn away! I have before me the moving farewell of one of them to the people of the two parishes of which he was priest: "In our interview on the the Bishop addressed an ultimatum to me, to accept or reject the
new religion; I could not evade the issue. Therefore, to remain faithful to the obligation of my priesthood, to remain faithful to the Eternal Church... I was forced and coerced against my will to retire... Simple honesty and above all my honour as a priest impose on me an obligation to be loyal, precisely in this matter of divine gravity (the Mass)... This is the proof of faithfulness and love that I must give to God and men and to you in
particular, and it is on this that I shall be judged on the last day along with all those to whom was entrusted the same deposit (of faith)."
PART 3

The Faith First

5/12/2013

“Some are prepared to sacrifice the fight for the faith by saying: ‘Let us first re-enter the Church!
Let us first do everything to integrate the official, public structure of the Church. Let us be silent
about dogmatic issues. Let us be silent about the malice of the [New] Mass. Let us keep quiet
over the issues of religious freedom, Human Rights, ecumenism. And, once we are inside the
Church, we will be able to do this, we will be able to achieve that...’ That's absolutely false! You
don't enter into a structure, under superiors, by claiming that you will overthrow everything as
soon as you are inside, whereas they have all the means to suppress us! They have all the
authority.

“What matters to us first and foremost is to maintain the Catholic Faith. That's what we are
fighting for. So, the canonical issue, this purely public and exterior issue in the Church, is
secondary. What matters is to stay within the Church... inside the Church, in other words, in the
Catholic Faith of all time, in the true priesthood, in the true Mass, in the true sacraments, and the
same catechism, with the same Bible. That's what matters to us. That's what the Church is. Public recognition is a secondary issue. Thus, we should not seek what is secondary by losing what is
primary, by losing what is the primary goal of our fight!

“We cannot place ourselves under an authority whose ideas are liberal and who little by little
would condemn us, by the logic of the thing, to accept these liberal ideas and all the
consequences of these liberal ideas, which are the new Mass, changes in the liturgy, changes in
the Bible, changes in catechism, all these changes...”

Spiritual Conference December 21st 1984

Sermon at Lille November 1976

5/12/2013

Archbishop Lefebvre

Sermon at Lille 1976

My Dear Brethren,

Before addressing a few words of exhortation to you, I should like first to dispel some misunderstandings. And to begin with, about this very gathering.

You can see from the simplicity of this ceremony that we made no preparations for a ceremony which would have gathered a crowd like the one in this hall. I thought I should be saying Holy Mass on the 29 August as it had been arranged, before a few hundreds of the faithful of the Lille region, as I have done often in France, Europe, and even America, with no fuss.

Yet all of a sudden this date, 29 August, through press, radio and television, has become a kind of demonstration, resembling, so they say, a challenge. Not at all: this demonstration is not a challenge. This demonstration is what you wanted, dear Catholic brethren, who have come from long distances. Why? To manifest your Catholic faith; to manifest your belief; to manifest your desire to pray and to sanctify yourselves as did your fathers in faith, as did generations and generations before you. That is the real object of this ceremony, during which we desire to pray, pray with all our heart, adore Our Lord Jesus Christ Who in a few moments will come down on this altar and will renew the sacrifice of the Cross which we so much need.

I should like also to dispel another misunderstanding. Here I beg your pardon, but I have to say it: it was not I who called myself head of the traditionalists. You know who did that not long ago in solemn and memorable circumstances in Rome. Mgr. Lefebvre was said to be the head of the traditionalists. I do not want to be head of the traditionalists, nor am I. Why? Because I also am a simple Catholic. A priest and a bishop, certainly; but in the very conditions in which you find yourselves, reacting in the same way to the destruction of the Church, to the destruction of our faith, to the ruins piling up before our eyes.

Having the same reaction, I thought it my duty to form priests, the true priests that the Church needs. I formed those priests in a "Saint Pius X Society," which was recognized by the Church. All I was doing was what all bishops have done for centuries and centuries. That is all I did—something I have been doing for thirty years of my priestly life. It was on that account that I was made a bishop, an Apostolic Delegate in Africa, a member of the central pre-conciliar commission, an assistant at the papal throne. What better proof could I have wanted that Rome considered my work profitable for the Church and for the good of souls? And now when I am doing the same thing, a work exactly like what I have been doing for thirty years, all of a sudden I am suspended 'a divinis', and perhaps I shall soon be excommunicated, separated from the Church, a renegade, or what have you! How can that be? Is what I have been doing for thirty years liable also to suspension a divinis?

I think, on the contrary, that if then I had been forming seminarians as they are being formed now in the new seminaries I should have been excommunicated. If then I had taught the catechism which is being taught in the schools I should have been called a heretic. And if I had said Mass as it is now said I should have been called suspect of heresy and out of the Church. It is beyond my understanding. It means something has changed in the Church; and it is about that that I wish to speak.

The union desired by these Liberal Catholics, a union between the Church and the Revolution and subversion is, for the Church, an adulterous union, adulterous. And that adulterous union can produce only bastards. And who are those bastards? They are our rites: the rite of Mass is a bastard rite, the sacraments are bastard sacraments—we no longer know if they are sacraments which give grace or which do not give grace. We no longer know if this Mass gives the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ or if it does not give them. The priests coming out of the seminaries do not themselves know what they are. In Rome it was the Archbishop of Cincinnati who said: "Why are there no more vocations? Because the Church no longer knows what a priest is." How then can She still form priests if She does not know what a priest is? The priests coming out of the seminaries are bastard priests. They do not know what they are. They do not know that they were made to go up to the altar to offer the sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to give Jesus Christ to souls, and to call souls to Jesus Christ. That is what a priest is. Our young men here know that very well. Their whole life is going to be consecrated to that, to love, adore, and serve Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist.

The adulterous union of the Church with the Revolution is consolidated with dialogue. When the Church entered into dialogue it was to convert. Our Lord said: "Go, teach all nations, convert them." But He did not say to hold dialogue with them so as not to convert them, so as to try to put us on the same footing with them.

Error and truth are not compatible. We must see if we have charity towards others, as the Gospel says: he who has charity is one who serves others. But those who have charity should give Our Lord, they should give the riches they possess to others and not just converse with them and enter into dialogue on an equal footing. Truth and error are not on the same footing. That would be putting God and the Devil on the same footing, for the Devil is the father of lies, the father of error.

We must therefore be missionaries.

We must preach the Gospel, convert souls to Jesus Christ and not engage in dialogue with them in an effort to adopt their principles. That is what this bastard Mass and these bastard rites are doing to us, for we wanted dialogue with the Protestants and the Protestants said to us: "We will not have your Mass; we will not have it because it contains things incompatible with our Protestant faith. So change the Mass and we shall be able to pray with you. We can have intercommunion. We can receive your sacraments. You can come to our churches and we can come to yours; then it will be all finished and we shall have unity." We shall have unity in confusion, in bastardy. That we do not want. The Church has never wanted it. We love the Protestants; we want to convert them. But it is not loving them to let them think they have the same religion as the Catholic religion.

There will be no peace on this earth except in the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The nations are at war—every day we have page after page of the newspapers about it, we have it on radio and television. Now because of a change of Prime Minister they are asking what can be done to improve the economic situation, what will strengthen the currency, what will bring prosperity to industry, and so on. All the papers in the world are full of it. But even from an economic point of view Our Lord Jesus Christ must reign, because the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ is the reign of the principles of love, indeed of the commandments of God which give society its balance, which make justice and peace reign in society. It is only when society has order, justice, and peace that the economy can prevail and revive. That is easily seen. Take the Argentine Republic as an example. What state was it in just two or three months ago? Complete anarchy, brigands killing right and left, industries totally ruined, factory owners seized and held to ransom, and so on. An incredible revolution, and that in a country so beautiful, so balanced, and so congenial as the Argentine Republic, a Republic which could be extraordinarily prosperous and enormously wealthy. Now there is a government of principle, with authority, which brings back order into life and stops the brigands murdering; and lo and behold! the economy is reviving, workers have employment, and they can return to their homes knowing that no one is going to knock them on the head because they will not strike when they do not wish to strike. That is the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ that we want; and we profess our faith, saying that Our Lord Jesus Christ is God.

I have just been talking to you about principles, I might say political principles, which one may have, the political principles of the Church. She has principles, political principles, principles for society, for She considers that society is created by God, like the family. The family has its laws: there are father, mother, and child; and each has a law and a position in the family. Similarly in civil society. The Church considers that it is a creature of God, and that this creature of God also has its laws so that it can develop normally and give all its members the fullest possibility for their own development. Of course we want governments to observe these laws. I took that example, but I might have taken another, for, as you know, I do not write my speeches—a pity, perhaps —but I do not think about them well in advance. So, trying to give an example of Christian order, of the notion people have of Christian order which brings things back to peace and justice, with the hierarchy which is necessary in a society, I quoted this example because it is recent and known to everybody, and also because the situation was really frightful, the Argentine being in a state of anarchy, with assassinations and abductions—a situation on the brink of the abyss, on the verge of total anarchy..............

Should we profess our Faith?

5/11/2013

If we are convinced that we have the truth, we should exert ourselves to make it known that that truth can benefit our friends as well. It is a failure in charity to hide one's truth, to hide one's personal riches and not let those profit from them who do not have their own. Why have missions, why set off to distant countries to convert souls, if not because one is certain of having the truth and desirous of sharing the graces received with those who have not yet received them? It is indeed Our Saviour who said: "Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. He that believeth shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be condemned." That is what Our Saviour said. Strengthened by these words, we continue our apostolate, trusting in Providence: it is not possible that this condition of the Church should remain indefinitely.

This morning, in the lessons which Holy Church has us read, we read the story of David and Goliath, and I thought to myself: Should we not be the young David with his sling and a few stones which he found in the stream to strike down Goliath clad in special armour and with a sword capable of splitting his enemy in two? Well, who knows if Econe is not the little stone which will finish by destroying Goliath? Goliath believed in himself; David believed in God and invoked God before attacking Goliath. That is what we are doing. We are full of confidence in God, and we pray God to help us to strike down this giant who believes in himself, who believes in his armour, his muscles, and his weapons. That means the men who believe in themselves, who believe in their science, who believe that by human means we shall succeed in converting the world. As for us, we put our trust in God, and we hope that this Goliath who has penetrated into the interior of the Church will one day be struck down, and that the Church will truly discover Her authenticity, Her truth such as She has always had. Oh, the Church always has it; She does not will to perish; and we hope, precisely, to cooperate with that vitality of the Church and that continuity of the Church. I am convinced that these young priests will continue the Church. That is what we ask them to do, and we are sure that with the grace of God and the help of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Priesthood, they will succeed.

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

Sermon in Geneva J