7 March 1976 Dear Friends and Benefactors, Amidst trials and opposition our Work goes serenely ahead,
trusting in God and based on the Faith which does not change and
cannot be shaken. On April 3rd there will be 11 more deacons at Ecône, and many
seminarians will on the same day be receiving Minor Orders. Together
with the dozen seminarians doing military service, Ecône now counts
110 seminarians. We already have some 40 applications for next
October. In Weissbad, as in Armada in the United States, applications are
so numerous that both houses will soon be filled. Our Sisters in Albano include four Novices and five Postulants.
The latter will receive the habit on Easter Sunday, and if one counts
the four Americans who will be joining them soon, plus the ten or so
applicants for October, then the House where they train will already
be gathering together some 23 aspirants to the religious life. They will be moving to France in October because the house at
Albano, originally intended for young priests, will be occupied by
the newly ordained sixth-year students. Our Brothers have two Novices and seven Postulants. They will be
gladly received in our various houses, increasing in number: four in
the USA (Armada, New York, San José and Houston); two in England
(Highclere and Sanderstead); one in Brussels; five in France, one in
Germany (Munich); three in Switzerland; one in Italy (Albano). It is thanks to your prayers and your generosity that in a year’s
time we shall be able, please God, to have 26 priests at your
disposal: 13 are already at work training students or ministering to
souls. How does it come about that a Work thus resembling all those of
its kind existing before the Second Vatican Council should be harshly
and pitilessly hounded down by the Roman Authorities, unjustly and
illegally suppressed, accused of breaking off communion with Rome,
etc.? The reason is precisely that we are continuing to believe and act
as the Church always has believed and acted. Hence the truth is that
modern Rome has changed. And yet it was clear to see where the
novelties already repeatedly condemned by the Magisterium of the
Church would lead. The balance-sheet for the ten years following the Council is
catastrophic in all departments. Churchmen, herein following numerous
bad examples, thought that they could replace what Our Lord
instituted with institutions better suited to the modern world,
forgetting that Jesus Christ is God “yesterday, today and for ever”
(Heb. 13:8), and that His Work is suited to all times and to all men. Saint Pius X condemned them in his masterly Encyclical
Pascendi. Such innovators pervert the faith, bring supernatural
means down to the level of man and destroy the hierarchical
constitution of the Church. For a long time now we have been warned by the Popes. Pius IX had
the Documents of the Alta Vendita of the Carbonari published
in which we read: “In a hundred years’ time…bishops and priests
will think they are marching behind the banner of the keys of Peter
when in fact they will be following our flag.” (Masonic
Infiltrations in the Church, Barbier.) Fogazzaro at the
beginning of the century, founder of the Modernist lodge of Milan,
used to say: “The Reform will have to be brought about in the name
of obedience.” (The Church under Occupation, Ploncard d’
Assac.)7 Now, when we hear in Rome that he who was the heart and soul of
the liturgical reform is a Freemason, we may think that he is not the
only one. The veil covering over the greatest hoax ever to have
mystified the clergy and baffled the faithful is doubtless beginning
to be torn asunder. Now is the time then to hold more faithfully than ever to
Tradition and the unchanging Church, and to pray to God, to the
Blessed Virgin Mary, and to St. Michael the Archangel to free the
Church from the scandalous occupation of which She is victim. “This is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith.” (I
John 5:4.) May God bless you through the intercession of His Holy Mother, and
I wish you all a Holy Eastertide! †Marcel Lefebvre
Letter
to Friends and Benefactors