November 2023 Print

By Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre

Excerpt from A Bishop Speaks, 2nd ed., 2007, pp. 81-85

The Truth of the Church

The Truth of the Church has evident implications which embarrass Protestants and, alas! a number of Catholics imbued with liberalism. From now on the new dogma that will take the place of the Truth of the Church will be the dignity of the human person and the supreme benefit of liberty, two concepts which it has avoided defining clearly.

According to our innovators it follows that freedom to make public manifestation of the religion of one’s conscience becomes a strict right of every human being, a right with which no-one living may interfere. Whether the religion be true or not, whether it bring virtues or vices in its train matters little to them. The only limitation would be a common good which these innovators are careful not to define.

This belief would necessitate a revision of the agreements between the Vatican and some nations that rightly grant preferential treatment to the Catholic religion. On the question of religion the State should be neutral. Many State constitutions would need revision, not in Catholic States only. Did it ever occur to these new legislators for human nature that the pope is himself the head of a State? Will he be invited to laicize the Vatican?

It would follow that Catholics would no longer have the right to labor for the establishment or re-establishment of a Catholic State. It would be their duty to support the religious indifference of the State. Pope Pius IX, following Pope Gregory XVI, called this “delirium” and again “freedom for perdition” (Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864). Leo XIII issued an admirable encyclical on the subject, Liberttas Praestantissimum. But all that was for their day, not for 1964!

Liberty as sought by those who see it as an absolute good is a chimera. If it be true that it is often restricted in the moral order, how much more is this true in the order of intellectual choice? God has wonderfully provided for what our human nature lacks by the families with which he has surrounded us; the family which gave us birth and should give us our breeding; the country whose directors should further the normal development of families towards material, moral, and spiritual perfection; the Church by her dioceses with the bishops as their Father, whose parishes form religious cells where souls are born into the divine life and nurtured for that life by the sacraments.

To define liberty as the absence of constraint is to destroy all the authorities placed by God in the bosom of these families to foster the right use of the freedom given us to seek the Good spontaneously and possibly to increase it, as with children and their like. The Truth of the Church is the essential reason for its apostolic zeal, its proselytizing, and hence the deep-rooted motive for missionary vocations, priestly and religious vocations which demand generosity, sacrifice, and perseverance in affliction and crosses.

This zeal, which would fain set the world on fire, is embarrassing to Protestants. They would like to produce a schema on the Church in the world, carefully avoiding any mention of evangelization. The terrestrial city could be built without any question of priests, of monks or nuns, of the sacraments, of the sacrifice of the Mass, or of Catholic institutions, schools, or the spiritual and corporal works of charity.

In this spirit a schema on Missions becomes very difficult to frame. Do the innovators imagine that this is the way to fill seminaries and novitiates?

The Truth of the Church is still the very raison d’être for the existence of Catholic schools. The new dogma insinuates that the best thing to do would be to fuse the Catholic with other schools, provided that these observe the natural law.

Obviously, there can no longer be any question of Brothers or Sisters engaging in teaching! And Pope Pius XI’s admirable encyclical on the education of youth was for 1929, not for 1964!

The Social Doctrine of the Church

The social doctrine of the Church is another embarrassment to ecumenism. That is why we shall be told that “the distribution of property is left to the wisdom of men and the institutions of nations seeing that no part of the earth and no possessions have been bestowed by God on any individual.” Thus the doctrine still preached by Pope John XXIII that private property is a right essential to human nature would have no basis other than a positive right.

The struggle of classes and of nations would be necessary to progress and to the continual evolution of social structures. The common weal would be a notion perpetually developing and, “since no man is universal, none would have a complete vision of the common weal,” which has, however, been given a new definition: “the liberty and fullness of human life.”

What has become of all the papal teachings on the social doctrine of the Church–Rerum Novarum, Quadragesimo Anno, and Pacem in Terris? We are living in 1964. Will someone kindly tell us, then, what will become of the teachings of 1964 in 1974?

These examples are amply sufficient to prove that the commissions have a majority of members imbued with an ecumenism that, according to their own statement, is not only no longer Catholic, but bears a remarkable resemblance to the modernism condemned by Pope St. Pius X and that, as Pope Paul VI notes in his Encyclical Ecclesiam Suam, is once more coming to life. And then the liberal Press seized on these theses even before they were officially advanced, after they were embodied in the schemata and, above all, since some of these schemata, seemingly identical with the first, were given a large majority in the Council chamber.

Victory was won. The way is open to all forms of dialogue, that is, for them, to every compromise. To sum up: out with “papolatry” and the monarchical rule of the Church, farewell to the Holy Office, to the Index, consciences are free at last, etc.

Faced with such a storm and all that it has unleashed, what are we to do?

1) Keep our faith indefectible, our attachment to what the Church has always taught, and never let ourselves be moved or discouraged. Our Lord puts our faith to the test as He did with the Apostles and as He tried Abraham. In order that He may do so we must really have the impression that we are about to perish. Thus the victory of the Truth will be indeed that of God and not our own.

2) Be objective. Recognize the positive aspects shown in the wishes of the Council Fathers, desires which, unfortunately and almost unknown to themselves, have been used to produce legal documents on lines never envisaged by the Fathers themselves.

We may attempt to define these wishes as follows: A deep longing for greater collaboration leading to a more effective apostolate, collaboration among shepherds and collaboration with the Supreme Shepherd. Who can condemn such a desire? The desire to extend to our separated brethren and to the whole world their great charity so that all may come to our Lord and to His Church. The desire to give the Church a greater simplicity in its liturgy, in the usual demeanor of her shepherds, particularly the bishops, in a clerical training which will give future priests a more direct training for the pastoral ministry. This trend is motivated by the fear of no longer being listened to, or understood, by the body of the faithful.

These proper and timely desires could easily be brought out in admirable texts and trainings suited to our times without an ill-based and ill-understood collegiality; without a false religious freedom; without the inopportune statement on the Jews; without a seeming limitation of the power of the pope by denying the title of Mother of the Church to the Virgin Mary, and without calumniating the Roman Curia.

It was not the Council Fathers as a whole who wished for these texts in their published form and in conformity with new doctrine, but rather a group of Fathers and periti (experts) who used the rightful desires of the Fathers to get their doctrines through.

Thank God, the schemata have not yet been issued in their definitive form. The Pope has not yet approved them at a public session. Moreover, the Council has stated that it does not seek to define any new doctrine, but to be a pastoral and ecumenical Council. The Church of Rome, which alone is indefectible among all the individual Churches, remains firm in faith: the majority of Cardinals do not approve the new thesis. The Council Fathers, who have an important part in the Church of Rome, as well as the greater part, if not almost the totality of Roman theologians, do not side with the innovators. This is of capital importance, for it is in this Church of Rome, Mistress of Truth, that the faithful of the whole world should unite. Irenaeus stated the fact in his day.

3) Publicly profess our faith without flinching—in the Press, in our conversations, in our letters, and be ready to obey the pope, remaining indefectibly attached to him.

4) Pray and do penance. Pray to the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, for she is at the heart of all these disputes, and she has always defeated heresies. It is in her that the Council Fathers will find themselves of one mind and heart as do children about their Mother. It is she who watches over the Successor of Peter and will always ensure that Peter shall be he who confirms his brethren in the faith, which was that of the Apostles, especially Peter, and all his successors. If we are to deserve the help of our Lord’s grace, we must do penance; penance in carrying out the duties of our state with no flinching, yielding nothing, undiscouraged. This we must do despite the infernal background of licence, immodesty, scorn of authority, failure of respect for oneself and for one’s neighbor. Let us trust. God is all powerful and He has given our Lord all power in heaven and on earth. Is this omnipotence less in 1964 than in 1870 at the time of the last Council, or in the time of all the other Councils? Our Lord will never break the promises of everlastingness that He has made to the Holy Roman Catholic Church.

Confidite, ego sum, nolite timere (Mk. 6:50). O, Mary, Mother of the Church, show that thou art our Mother.

A Bishop Speaks

This book is a chronological collection of key letters, sermons, conferences, and interviews (1963-1976) of Archbishop Lefebvre that are critical to understanding his founding of the SSPX, his defense of Catholic Tradition, and his opposition to Vatican II and the New Mass.

“We hope that this English edition will be widely read. May it also help many Catholics— bishops, priests, and laity—to understand the tragedy that is ruining the Church, and the new betrayal of which Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Victim,” said Archbishop Lefebvre in the first English edition.

312 pp, Softcover. STK# 5067 $21.95