November 1985 Print

THE CHURCH TODAY is undergoing what must be the greatest crisis in her history. We can only assure ourselves that she will survive it by putting our faith in the promises of her divine Founder that He should be with her all days, even to the consummation of the world—"Et ecce ego vobiscum sum omnibus diebus, usque ad consummationem saeculi" (Matt. 28:18), and that the gates of hell should never prevail against her—"Et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversus eam" (Matt. 16:18). In his Consistory Allocution of 2 June 1944, Pope Pius XII taught that these divine promises guarantee that the Church will keep and transmit "inviolate and in all its integrity through the centuries and millennia to the very end of time, the entire sum and grace of truth contained in the redemptive mission of Christ."

Our Lord constituted His Church in a certain manner, and this divine constitution is immutable. The Church founded by Jesus Christ is a visible, hierarchically governed body built upon the rock of Peter—"Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam" (Lk. 16:18). It is, as the First Vatican Council taught, the house of the Living God—domus Dei viventis. All who remain within this house can be certain that they will receive the truth entrusted to His Church by the Son of God, and the grace of the sacraments which He instituted to provide them with the help necessary to live in accordance with His teaching. There is no possibility that the Church can ever fail in any aspect of her divine constitution. She is indefectible, unable to fail. She will, the First Vatican Council assures us in its Apostolic Constitution Pastor Aeternus, stand until the end of time—ad finem saeculorum usque firma stabit. However grave the crisis, however severe the persecution, however weak and vacillating the hierarchy, including the Pope himself, the divine constitution of the Church will remain immutable. She can never, for example, be reduced to a number of "true believers," faithful to Tradition, and linked only by invisible bonds. Even to suggest such a possibility is to blaspheme as it affirms that the promises made by Our Lord have not been fulfilled. The Church must always remain a visible hierarchical body united around the Pope, for whom Our Savior prayed that his faith shall not fail—''Ego autem rogavi pro te" (Lk. 22:32).

It is, however, important to realize that the promise of indefectibility does not apply to all the particular churches (i.e., dioceses) which make up the Mystical Body of Christ. (Each diocese can be referred to correctly as a church, i.e., the community of believers united around their bishop in a particular area. Apocalypse, 1:11.) The Catholic Encyclopedia points out that:

The gift of indefectibility plainly does not guarantee each several part of the Church against heresy or apostasy. The promise is made to the corporate body. Individual churches may become corrupt in morals, may fall into heresy, may even apostatize. Thus at the time of the Mohammedan conquests, whole populations renounced their faith; and the Church suffered similar losses in the sixteenth century. But the defection of isolated branches does not alter the character of the main stem. The Society of Jesus Christ remains endowed with all the prerogatives bestowed upon it by its Founder.¹

The divine promises do not rule out the possibility that the Church in its main stem, the house of the Living God—domo Dei viventis—may be reduced to a handful of persecuted believers gathered around the Pope, possibly in hiding, and thought to have been banished from the face of the earth. Such a possibility conforms to biblical teaching on the apparent triumph of the Anti-christ, and could not be depicted more dramatically than in the concluding chapter of Robert Hugh Benson's novel The Lord of the World.

In most countries of the Western world the Church appears to have reached such a stage of moral corruption, heresy, and apostasy that it can no longer be termed Catholic, and has degenerated beyond a level from which, as a whole, it can ever recover. Holland is the most evident example here. When His Holiness Pope John Paul II visited this country in 1985 the hatred manifested against him, and the abuse heaped upon him, can be described only as a diabolic manifestation. An article entitled "The Plight of the Papalist Priest" appeared in the December 1981 issue of The Homiletic and Pastoral Review. This long-established journal for priests is undoubtedly the most influential conservative Catholic publication in the U.S.A., but by no stretch of the imagination could it be linked with the traditionalist movement. The article which has been mentioned was written by a diocesan priest who was forced to remain anonymous for fear of persecution. This, in itself, is a telling commentary on the state of contemporary American Catholicism. A respected priest with a long record of service to the Church dare not reveal his identity simply because he is loyal to the Pope! The papalist priest claimed that certain American dioceses are now "dominated by theological Modernism." In some cases the bishops themselves are Modernists, in others "they have appointed Modernists to all or most of the key positions; they have voiced public praise for these officials; they have never—at least publicly—attempted to correct their errors." He considered that only about one-eighth of the clergy are now loyal to the Pope, and that:

In his diocesan context the papalist priest is a pariah, the butt of obloquy, of condescending pity, barred from any positions of influence, quarantined to small enclaves, usually isolated rural places where he can do the least "damage."

The only form of growth in the English-speaking Catholic world today is in the continually expanding bureaucracy. These innumerable bureaucratic structures are described by the papalist priest as "polypodal tendencies ever sucking, sapping, squeezing and throttling the non-conformists." His assessment of the seminaries is particularly depressing:

To add to our dismay, we realize that the seminaries utilized by our dioceses, some belong to the diocese itself, are now hot beds, seminaria, of Modernism. We send bright-eyed idealist, Catholic youth into these dens of revolution only to have them come back on vacations and, rarely, for ordination, as programmed anti-papal unCatholic activists . . . The only salvation for seminary candidates, unless they can master the art of dissembling, is for the pastor to dissuade them from going . . . Here is a peak of priestly suffering: dissuading a candidate from the seminary in order to save his soul.

Although the author of the article is not a traditionalist, he is objective enough to concede one of the fundamental axioms of the traditionalist case, that the abysmal state of the Church today can be attributed to no small extent to weakness and pusillanimity in the Vatican itself:

Words of exhortation from Rome will not effect changes so long as the present bishops are in place in the control dioceses. There is simply no way to reform seminaries, religious education offices, marriage tribunals, the diocesan press, liturgical and other abuses, until tough, papally-orientated bishops are in position.

 

Testimonies to the Post-conciliar Debacle

Pope Paul VI, through his weakness and indecision, and, not to mince words, liberal opinions and policies, must certainly accept primary responsibility for the abysmal decadence of contemporary Catholicism. He had imagined, probably in all sincerity, that his policies would initiate an unprecedented renewal in the Church, but by 1968 he admitted publicly that the Church was engaged in a process of self-destruction (autodistruzione).² Father Louis Bouyer, a theological adviser at the Second Vatican Council, had prophesied incalculable benefits flowing from the implementation of its decrees. He was honest enough to describe the reality of this implementation as "less like the hoped-for regeneration of Catholicism than its accelerated decomposition."³

No one has provided a more accurate assessment of what has happened in the Church since the Second Vatican Council than Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In an article printed in the 24 December 1984 issue of L'Osservatore Romano he admitted that:

Certainly, the results [of Vatican II] seem cruelly opposed to the expectations of everyone, beginning with those of Pope John XXIII and then of Paul VI: expected was a new Catholic unity and instead we have been exposed to dissension which—to use the words of Pope Paul VI—seems to have gone from self-criticism to self-destruction. Expected was a new enthusiasm, and many wound up discouraged and bored. Expected was a great step forward, and instead we find ourselves faced with a progressive process of decadence which has developed for the most part precisely under the sign of a calling back to the Council, and has therefore contributed to discrediting it for many. The net result therefore seems negative. I am repeating here what I said ten years after the conclusion of the work: it is incontrovertible that this period has definitely been unfavorable for the Catholic Church."

 Decadence in the Church is Not a New Phenomenon

Those who are familiar with the history of the Church will know how often its mission has been hampered by the weakness of its human members, and, alas, this weakness has usually been more apparent among the clergy than the laity. Where the laity are lax and decadent it will almost invariably be found that they are being ministered to by a decadent clergy. Hilaire Belloc considered that the greatest proof of the divine nature of the Catholic Church is its survival despite those who have so often governed it. Time and again in the history of the Church we witness declines which would have destroyed a merely human organization, but then a great Pope or a great saint will arise and initiate a process of renewal. For something like a century and a half, from 904 to 1049, the Church suffered a period of abysmal decadence, a period which can be traced back even before the election of the unscrupulous, immoral and truly terrible Pope Sergius III in 904. But in 1049, a saint was elected to the papacy, St. Leo IX, who was whole-heartedly behind the radical reform movement in the Church inspired initially by the monks of Cluny. St. Leo had a clear policy in mind: he saw that the Church must be reformed from the top. Nothing could be done unless the episcopate was purified. But under his predecessors, unworthy bishops had proliferated throughout the Church, and, had it not been for her divine constitution, they must inevitably have destroyed her.

In the fourth century, Pope Liberius showed lamentable weakness in the face of the Arian heresy. He signed an ambiguous semi-Arian formula and excommunicated St. Athanasius, defender of Our Lord's divinity. Once again we can only attribute the survival of the Church to divine protection. For a time it seemed that Arianism had indeed triumphed. Most of the bishops apostatized, or at least temporized. Cardinal Newman pointed out that the Faith was preserved in that period primarily by the laity, many of whom remained true to the Faith which they had received from the bishops, but which the bishops themselves had abandoned or lacked the courage to proclaim. These faithful Catholics and a few valiant priests had to worship outside the churches in their dioceses, and do so in secret to avoid persecution by their own bishops. St. Athanasius went in secret from diocese to diocese, offering Mass, preaching, consoling, exhorting Catholics to keep the Faith that had been handed down to them, and even ordaining priests so that a true Catholic priesthood would continue. Thus the Faith was kept alive. Liberius was the first Roman Pontiff not to be canonized whereas St. Athanasius was raised to the honors of the altar.

In the reign of King Henry VIII, the entire English hierarchy, with one exception, was willing to accept that their adulterous monarch was "the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England." This single exception was, of course, Bishop John Fisher of Rochester, now a saint. "The fort is betrayed even of them that should have defended it," said St. John Fisher of his apostate colleagues. St. Thomas More referred sadly to the English clergy as "lacking in grace."

In chapter XXVI, verse 35, of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, we find the apostles affirming that they would die rather than deny Our Lord. In verse 56 of the same chapter we read that when Our Lord was arrested they all left Him and fled. I have heard this referred to as the first collegial decision made by the Catholic hierarchy. Later, as we know, the first pope personally denied Our Lord three times.

Saint Paul teaches us that the Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ can be compared to a physical body. Christ is the Head of the Body, the Holy Ghost the Soul, and we are the members. As with a physical body, the Mystical Body depends upon all its members to achieve its purpose, which is nothing less than the salvation of the entire human race irrespective of time or place. Our Lord has willed that this shall be achieved through the cooperation of the members of His Mystical Body. He need not have done so. Why He has done so is a mystery which we can never comprehend, just as we cannot comprehend why, in order to redeem us, He deemed it necessary to undergo His Passion and death upon the Cross. But having decided that the salvation of mankind is to be achieved through the cooperation of His Mystical Body, He is dependent upon that cooperation. St. Teresa of Avila reminds us that Our Savior has no hands but ours to do His work. In his sublime encyclical The Mystical Body of Christ, Pope Pius XII discusses at some length the paradox that God should require the cooperation of the members of His Mystical Body. He makes it clear that Christ requires this help not by necessity, but by choice, just as He chose to become incarnate through the cooperation of the Blessed Virgin Mary). "Our Savior," explained Pope Pius XII, "wants to be helped by the members of His Mystical Body in carrying out the work of Redemption. This is not due to any need or insufficiency in Him, but rather because He has so ordained it for the greater honor of His Immaculate Bride."

Thus, when the very existence of the Mystical Body has appeared to be threatened through decadence or heresy, members of the Body have risen up to act as instruments of the divine Head in restoring it to health. Mention has already been made of St. Leo IX and St. Athanasius. Every crisis within the Church has been overcome, at least in part, by the appearance of a great saint, a St. Francis, a St. Ignatius Loyola, a St. John Bosco, and often by the foundation of a new religious order. There have been occasions when a successor of St. Peter has been justifiably rebuked for weakness or indecision. St. Catherine of Siena had no scruples about doing this. Ample precedent for such action can be found in Galatians, 2:11, when St. Paul withstood St. Peter "to the face, because he was to be blamed"—quia reprehensibilis erat. St. Thomas Aquinas cites this incident as "an example to superiors, that if at any time they should happen to stray from the straight path, they should not disdain to be reproved by their subjects."⁴

 

An Awesome Privilege

Many Catholics lament the fact that they are living at a time of such crisis in the life of the Church. This is particularly true of those who are old enough to remember the Church as she was before Vatican II, particularly her stability and the splendor of her liturgy. This is a mistaken attitude. Present-day Catholics should consider themselves as the recipients of an awesome privilege bestowed upon them by Almighty God. It is their privilege and responsibility as members of the Mystical Body to play their part in purging the Body of the poison of Modernism, which, St. Pius X warned us in his encyclical Pascendi, attacks the Faith at its very root: "And once having struck at the root of immortality, they proceed to diffuse poison through the whole tree, so there is no part of Catholic truth which they leave untouched, none that they do not strive to corrupt."

Most Catholics, as is almost invariably the case, have remained passive in the face of the crisis. They may not have welcomed the liturgical, moral and doctrinal decadence which they see all around them, but they have not been willing to play an active part in combatting it. This is hardly surprising when most of the clergy from whom they might have expected leadership never cease telling them that the degeneration which is taking place in every aspect of Catholic life is, in fact, an unprecedented renewal bringing incalculable benefits to Catholics everywhere.

Some Catholics have drunk the poison of Modernism with relish. Like so many heroin addicts, they believe that they are undergoing an experience which is enriching their lives, not realizing that it is destroying them. Prophets of decadence, they urge us all to drink deep of the Modernist poison to which they are addicted, and share with them the hallucination that the Church did not really begin until Pope John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council.

Other Catholics refused to abandon the Faith which they had received. They saw it as a sacred trust which it was their duty to preserve and hand on undiminished. When the history of the contemporary crisis comes to be written there is one name which will stand out above all the heroes of the Catholic resistance, that of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. The Archbishop was born on 29 November 1905, and so this month he will celebrate his eightieth birthday.

A Truly Catholic Childhood

The young Marcel was born into an exemplary Catholic family living at Tourcoing in northern France. The love, the piety, and the fidelity to their religious duties of his parents, Rene and Gabrielle, was such that of their eight children two sons became priests and three daughters entered religious orders. Monsieur Lefebvre owned a textile factory and was a model employer, always showing the greatest possible consideration for the welfare of his workers. He would assist at Mass and recite the rosary each day before beginning work. Madame Lefebvre was characterized by absolute selflessness. She dedicated herself entirely to the needs of her family and her neighbors, among whom she counted all who suffered any form of material or spiritual deprivation. A life of this heroic woman was written before the Council by a priest who knew her well, and believed that one day she may be canonized.

The Lefebvre family were no strangers to crises, to suffering, and to apparently hopeless situations, but these were inevitably overcome with the help of their unflinching faith. During the First World War they underwent the trauma of German occupation. Monsieur Lefebvre organized the escape of Allied prisoners from German-occupied territory. He later escaped to Paris and, under the name of Lefort, worked for the French Intelligence, undertaking the most dangerous missions. All this became known to the Germans, and when they occupied France in World War II they arrested him as a potential leader of the Resistance. He was imprisoned at Sonnenburg, where he died after brutal treatment, an inspiration to his fellow prisoners.

While her husband was away serving his country during World War I, Madame Lefebvre directed the factory, looked after her children, cared for the wounded, visited the sick and the poor, and organized resistance against the Germans. She was imprisoned and became so gravely ill that her death appeared imminent. But she would make no concessions whatsoever in order to secure her release. The German commandant begged her to write a note asking to be pardoned, but she refused to do so, preferring to die rather than compromise on a matter of principle. Fearing the consequences of her death, the Germans released her. She returned to her family broken in health, but unbroken in spirit. With such parents, it is not hard to understand why the Archbishop is endowed with a character which enables him to refuse all compromise, no matter what the cost.

No one was surprised when Marcel entered a seminary. He studied first in his own diocese, and then in the French Seminary in Rome where he obtained doctorates in theology and philosophy. Another family crisis occurred during the very year of his ordination, 1929. Due to a recession in the textile market his father's business collapsed. Rene Lefebvre was declared bankrupt, and the family suffered financial ruin, but with typical Lefebvre resolution, he did not despair. He set to work immediately and built his business up again. This must certainly have been an incident which the Archbishop recalled when the Church he loved began to collapse in ruins about him after the Council.

 

African Mission

Father Lefebvre's first appointment was to a poor working class parish where he was very happy and well loved by the parishioners, but he felt increasingly called to the missions, and in 1931 he joined the Holy Ghost Fathers. He was sent to Gabon in Africa in 1932. There is no space here to give even a brief outline of what must certainly be one of the greatest missionary careers of this century. Within a year of his arrival he had been appointed Professor of Dogma and Scripture in the major seminary for French Equatorial Africa. By 1934 he was directing the entire seminary. He was consecrated bishop in 1947, and, such was the confidence placed in him by Pope Pius XII, that he was appointed Apostolic Delegate to the whole of French-speaking Africa in 1948.

The influence of Archbishop Lefebvre resulted in an unprecedented flowering of Catholicism in French Africa. It seemed that any initiative he undertook was certain to flourish. The number of converts escalated, seminaries, schools, dispensaries, Catholic journals, and religious houses appeared, twenty-one new dioceses were founded. And everywhere he was and is regarded with admiration and affection by the African Catholics who owe so much to him. When he returns to the African countries for which he was once responsible, he is treated as an honored guest by statesmen and bishops. This is hardly surprising as it was largely due to his initiative that they now possess an indigenous clergy. In 1962 he was able to hand over his archbishopric of Dakar to an African successor, now Cardinal Hyacinthe Thiandoum, who makes no secret of the fact that he regards himself as the spiritual son of Archbishop Lefebvre.

Important Appointments

Pope John XXIII appointed Mgr. Lefebvre to the bishopric of Tulle in France upon his return to Europe, but he did not remain there long. In July of the same year, 1962, he was elected Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, the most important missionary order in the Church. A majority of at least two-thirds was necessary, and despite the Archbishop's pleas that this cross should not be laid upon his shoulders, he received it. No greater proof could be provided of the esteem in which he was held throughout the Catholic world on the eve of Vatican II. The confidence which Pope John XXIII placed in Mgr. Lefebvre was no less than that of Pope Pius XII. He had appointed him a member of the Central Preparatory Commission of the Council in 1960.

 

The Second Vatican Council

The Archbishop was present at all the meetings of the Preparatory Commission for the Council. He was also an active leader of the conservative bishops during the Council itself. There is no one better placed to make an objective assessment of what took place during this Council which was like no other in the history of the Church. He has commented on this in his books A Bishop Speaks and I Accuse the Council.⁵ The Council was effectively taken over by liberal-minded bishops who, to a large extent, simply acted as mouthpieces for their even more liberal-minded expert advisers (periti). Some of these experts, such as Hans Küng, have shown no compunction in flaunting their Modernism openly since the Council. General councils normally promulgate infallible teaching in the form of definitions which the faithful must accept under pain of excommunication. Vatican II issued no such definitions, and Pope Paul VI himself stressed the fact that none of its teaching can be regarded as infallible, and that this was due to the "pastoral nature" of the Council.⁶ The deficiencies of Vatican II lie not so much in what it taught specifically as in the ambiguities found in some of its documents. The Archbishop refers to them as "time bombs," placed there to be detonated after the Council when the experts who had inserted them took control of the commissions established to interpret and implement the Council. These men have interpreted the documents of the Council in a manner which would have horrified most of the bishops on the day they voted for them. Thus, approval for what the Fathers thought a very moderate and limited reform of the liturgy, was transformed, in practice, into a liturgical revolution, which enabled one of the experts concerned to boast that "the Roman Rite has been destroyed."⁷ There is no space here to examine what took place at the Council, or to decide the extent to which the subsequent reforms did or did not reflect what the bishops had actually intended. It will suffice to repeat that the hoped-for renewal did not take place, and that what we are witnessing is the decomposition of Catholicism. The quotation by Cardinal Ratzinger which was cited earlier summarizes the situation.

 

After the Council

One of the principal legacies of Vatican II is the so-called spirit of openness to the world. The biblical concept of a Church in fundamental conflict with the world was abandoned for an attitude of facile optimism. The presumption was that all men were animated by good will. Dialogue was the order of the day. The state of siege was ended, and the gates of the City of God were opened to let the world in. This did not initiate a mass conversion of those outside the Church, but a mass perversion of those within it. Dogma and morality began to be adapted to the prevailing consensus. What man found convenient rather than what God commanded became the norm. Ecumenism took priority over truth.

This new spirit soon affected the religious orders, including the Holy Ghost Fathers. In 1968 it became clear that many of those who had elected Mgr. Lefebvre as Superior General with such enthusiasm in 1962 no longer had any use for him. Although his term of office still had six years to run, and he could not be removed, he decided to resign rather than involve the Society in conflict. He saw that the spirit of compromise with the world had already spread within it to such an extent that it could not be eradicated.

The Archbishop then entered into a well-merited retirement, renting a small apartment in Rome from some nuns. He was now in this sixty-third year, and he would have earned a distinguished and honored place in the history of the Church if this retirement had proved to be final. But it was not to be the case.

 

A New Apostolate

One of the first areas in which the self-destruction of the Church became manifest soon after the Council was that of seminary education. As the "papalist priest" lamented in the quotation cited earlier, young men must now be dissuaded from entering seminaries in order to save their souls! This sad fact had become evident in Europe several years before it became manifest in the U.S.A. Even in Rome seminaries had become tainted with Modernism. Mgr. Lefebvre was approached by seminarians needing spiritual guidance. He agreed to help them, but had not the least thought of founding a new religious order or establishing his own seminary. The founding of the Society of St. Pius X must be interpreted as a response to the working of Divine Providence rather than a premeditated plan. The Archbishop eventually concluded that the only place where students could be sure of receiving a sound formation was at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He soon found that Modernism had invaded even this previously orthodox institution, and, with the enthusiastic approbation of Mgr. Francois Charriere, the Bishop of Fribourg, he opened a modest house of studies for a handful of students. On 1 November 1970 the Society of St. Pius X was canonically established by the bishop. In the decree of erection, Mgr. Charriere implored divine blessings upon the Society "that it might attain its principal aim, which is the formation of holy priests."

The workings of Divine Providence can certainly be seen in the almost miraculous manner in which the Archbishop was able to obtain a large house which had belonged to the Canons of St. Bernard in the Diocese of Sion. The house was located in the almost unknown hamlet of Ecône, near Riddes. God's instrument in this case was the late Monsieur Alphons Pedroni, who told the Archbishop: "Ecône will soon be known throughout the world." Monsieur Pedroni proved to be a true prophet.

 

Miraculous Progress

Once again, miraculous appears to be the only term adequate to describe what happened next. The newly established seminary soon proved too small to accommodate the young men flocking there from all over the world. New accommodation and lecture rooms needed to be built immediately but the cost would be enormous. Word of what was taking place had now reached faithful Catholics in many countries, and the necessary donations soon began to arrive. As fast as new extensions could be constructed they were filled, and still more building had to be undertaken. More professors were needed, and such was the esteem in which the Vatican held the seminary that it authorized the transfer of priests from other orders to the Society. This esteem was further reflected in an enthusiastic letter from Cardinal Wright dated 18 February 1971. The Cardinal assured Mgr. Lefebvre that bishops in different parts of the world approved and praised the seminary.

 

The Society Under Attack

Satan ensures that any work which is of God, and which is frustrating his designs, soon comes under attack. The Society was no exception. Its success and its prestige were a standing reproach to most other seminaries, particularly those in France which were closing down at an embarrassing rate. There had been an 83% decline in seminary enrollment in France since the Council, which hardly constituted an endorsement of the new style and methods which the French bishops had introduced in order to make seminary education relevant and attractive to young men in the closing decades of the twentieth century.

A campaign of innuendo and outright lies was launched to discredit the Archbishop, the Society, and, above all, the seminary at Ecône. It was described as a "wildcat seminary" which had never received official authorization. The same distorted reports soon began to appear in English-speaking Catholic papers, and are still doing so. These journals will rarely correct even the most blatant untruths when they receive protests from their readers. The post-conciliar Catholic press evidently takes Dr. Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, as its model, and bases its reporting on the only too accurate premise that if a lie is told often enough it will be believed. Archbishop Lefebvre is almost invariably described in the Catholic press today as the "rebel bishop," when, in fact, his only offence is to refuse to rebel against the teaching and traditions of two millennia. This is precisely the treatment which the papalist priest complained of in the United States. "You shall be hated by all men for my name's sake," warned Our Lord. "But he that shall endure to the end, he shall be saved" (Mark, 13:13). And again: "If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you"—propterea odit vos mundus (John, 15:19).

 

A Travesty of Justice

The Pope himself was put under considerable pressure to act against the Society, principally by Cardinal Villot, his French Secretary of State, who served as the mouthpiece for the bishops of his country. Some Catholics have a very naive idea of the papal office, and imagine that the pope is free from human weaknesses. Even a cursory study of papal history will prove that this is not the case, and that there are few forms of human weakness to which at least some popes have not succumbed. A pope is as liable to surrender to pressure from powerful and influential lobbies within the Church as is the chief executive of any secular organization to similar pressure. History abounds with such instances, and injustice has often resulted when a pope gave way.

Pope Paul VI was known in Italy as the "Hamlet Pope," such was his indecisiveness. He agreed that the seminary should be subjected to an Apostolic Visitation. This is an inspection of a seminary by representatives of the Vatican. The fact that this visitation took place provides all the proof necessary that the seminary at Ecône was canonically established. The Pope does not send Apostolic Visitors to wildcat seminaries established without his authority! The Visitation took place in November 1974, and it eventually transpired that the report was favorable, at least to the extent that the very thorough inspection and examination of professors and students did not unearth a single justification for complaint, let alone closing the seminary.

What happened next almost defies belief. It appears to be a page from the history of Stalinist Russia rather than an episode in the life of Holy Mother Church. I shall outline what happened only in the briefest detail, and if those who are new to the story of the Archbishop refuse to believe what I have written I cannot blame them. All I can do is assure them that the whole process is documented in the fullest possible detail in volume one of my book Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre, and to ask them to have the fairness to at least examine the facts before dismissing this account as preposterous fiction.

Archbishop Lefebvre was asked to go to Rome in February 1975 for a "discussion" with three cardinals. On May 6 he received a letter from the cardinals informing him that the discussion had, in fact, been a trial; and that it had brought to light what the Apostolic Visitors had not been able to discover (proving that their report had been favorable). The cardinals stated that they had been instructed, by an authority they did not name, to tell Mgr. Lefebvre that he had been found guilty, and that he must disband the Society of St. Pius X and close down his seminary. Thus not only had he been deceived into believing that his "trial" was a discussion, but he was not even allowed to know who had pronounced the sentence against him!

Quite naturally, the Archbishop protested that the whole procedure was a moral outrage, offending not simply all accepted canonical procedures, but every principle of natural justice. He was, of course, correct. It is hard to believe that a prelate with such a record of service to the Church, a former Apostolic Delegate and Superior General of the Church's leading missionary order, had been denied the elementary standards of justice which would be accorded to a common criminal in any civilized country. Furthermore, even if any of the personal opinions which he had expressed merited censure, this would not have justified suppressing the Society of St. Pius X. To punish an entire religious order for an offense committed by its superior was unprecedented and outrageous, particularly when, as a close examination of the proceedings reveals, the Superior had committed no offense!

The Archbishop followed the correct canonical procedure and appealed, but he was denied even this right. Faced with a prima facie case of an abuse of power, he stated that he would not comply with the order unless he was accorded the proper canonical procedure. If this were granted he would agree to close his seminary, if ordered to do so.⁸

This right was not accorded to the Archbishop, and so he refused to comply with the command to disband the Society of St. Pius X and close down the seminary at Ecône. This decision is of crucial importance in understanding Mgr. Lefebvre's attitude to subsequent measures taken against him. Individual Catholics must base their decision as to whether they can in conscience support the Archbishop on their reaction to his refusal to submit to an abuse of power. An interesting comment on the problem appeared in the 22 October 1976 issue of The Cambridge Review, an independent university publication in England, with no Catholic links. It concluded that the condemnation of the Archbishop was contrary to natural justice, and added:

Morally such an attempt to deny a man's rights and frustrate his life's work, while refusing him any legal recourse is (to an Englishman at least) appalling.⁹

The Archbishop has refused to submit to any of the subsequent measures taken against him, because, as he argues with unassailable logic, these are all based upon the original condemnation. If natural justice accorded him the right not to submit to this unjust condemnation, then this right extends to all subsequent measures based upon it. Those of us who, like the editor of The Cambridge Review, consider the condemnation to have been appalling, a moral outrage, need have no compunction in giving Mgr. Lefebvre our support. On the other hand, those Catholics who believe that, even if the norms of natural justice were violated, the Archbishop should have submitted when, as eventually happened, the condemnation was ratified by the Pope, will not feel able to give him their active support, however much they might sympathize with him.

 

The Suspension

Mgr. Lefebvre was warned that if he proceeded to ordain priests in June 1976 he would be suspended for a year. Basing himself on the reasoning which has just been explained, the Archbishop refused to comply with this instruction, and automatically incurred the suspension—a suspension which he regarded as null and void. This suspension is incurred each year when he ordains new priests, but it would be lifted the moment he ceased ordaining. This is a point which cannot be emphasized too strongly. The Archbishop's condemnation is not connected in any way with his attitude to the New Mass or the Second Vatican Council. It is a purely disciplinary matter and involves nothing whatsoever beyond ordaining priests without Vatican permission.

It should also be made clear that at no stage in the measures taken against the Archbishop has his insistence upon using only the Tridentine Mass, both in his personal capacity and for the priests of his Society ever been invoked by the Vatican. This is hardly surprising as, despite a widespread opinion to the contrary, no canonical prohibition on offering the Tridentine Mass exists.¹⁰ It is also important to stress that the Archbishop has not been excommunicated, despite the fact that claims to this effect have been made by some of his enemies. His name appears annually with all other Catholic bishops in the Vatican Year Book, and I have a personal letter from a Cardinal of the Curia assuring me that the Archbishop has definitely not been excommunicated.

 

The Present Position

From 1976 till 1978 the situation was one of stalemate, but in 1978 a dramatic new development took place. The Archbishop has maintained consistently that if he was to be condemned for any of his theological opinions the only body competent to do so was the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Mgr. Lefebvre was deceived by the three cardinals who told him that they wished him to join them for a discussion—one in which the prisoner did not know that he was in the dock. But even if they had been honest, and told him what was really taking place, they would have had no competence to condemn him for any doctrinal opinions he expressed. The Archbishop insisted that his case should be dealt with by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and in 1978 that request was granted. A series of protracted negotiations began in that year, and they are still continuing today. While a solution does not appear imminent, the points of disagreement between the Archbishop and the Congregation have been narrowed considerably. The conditions which the Congregation originally required in order to have official recognition extended to the Society have been modified. There has also been an evident change in atmosphere since the election of Pope John Paul II. It was clear that Pope Paul VI felt that his personal prestige was at stake in the dispute, and that only an abject surrender on the part of the Archbishop would satisfy him. One of the first acts of the present Pope's pontificate was to arrange a meeting with Mgr. Lefebvre. It proved to be a positive and amicable occasion, and enabled the Archbishop to dispel some of the misconceptions which the Holy Father had formed concerning the Society.¹¹ The negotiations between Mgr. Lefebvre and the Holy See are fully documented in volume two of Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre. It is to be hoped that the eventual outcome will be the recognition of the Society by the Vatican once more, and the granting to it of the status of personal prelature as is the case with Opus Dei. The Society's houses throughout the world would thus enjoy official Vatican recognition, but would be under the jurisdiction of Archbishop Lefebvre and his successors rather than the diocesan bishops. Once this happened there would certainly be a considerable influx of priests into the Society, and a widespread return to Tradition could begin.

It was stated at the beginning of this article that Our Lord will be with His Church until the consummation of the world, that the gates of hell can never prevail against her, and that she will stand until the end of time—ad finem saeculorum usque firma stabit. It may well be that it is through the instrumentality of Archbishop Lefebvre and his Society that the onslaught of Satan is repulsed during the present crisis. We should all pray that an agreement can be reached between the Archbishop and the Vatican during his lifetime, and thus bring about a fitting conclusion to a lifetime of dedication to the Church which is almost unprecedented among bishops in our century.

 

The Society Progresses

Despite the sanctions imposed upon the Archbishop, the Society of St. Pius X has expanded in a way which can have been exceeded by few, if any, religious orders during the history of the Church, not excluding the Franciscans and Jesuits. It now possesses four flourishing seminaries located in Germany, the U.S.A., Argentina, as well as Ecône. It is purchasing churches and chapels all over the world at a quite astonishing rate, and many schools, colleges, and a university have opened. Religious orders for men and women, linked directly or indirectly with the Society, have been founded in several countries, and there has been an influx of religious vocations. The Society also has publications in several languages. Above all, the courageous stand made by the Archbishop has guaranteed that the Tridentine Mass, described by Father Faber as "the most beautiful thing this side of heaven," will certainly be preserved as a vital and living tradition into the twenty-first century. Not only will there be hundreds, thousands eventually, of young priests who have dedicated their lives to offering the traditional Mass, but tens of thousands of young people are already giving their support to the traditional movement when they have the opportunity of contrasting the awesome splendor of the Tridentine Mass with the banality of the liturgy celebrated in most of their parish churches each Sunday. The traditional Mass cannot, of course, be considered in isolation from traditional doctrinal and moral teaching. The priests of the Society are bringing this to the faithful, together with the Mass, and the Archbishop lays great stress upon the establishment of schools where a sound doctrinal and moral formation can be given. Great success, in that respect, has been achieved in the U.S.A. with St. Mary's College in Kansas.

It would be wrong to identify the traditional movement with Archbishop Lefebvre and the Society of St. Pius X alone. There was a flourishing traditional movement in the U.S.A. and many other countries before the first Society priest was ordained, and many fine priests and laymen are making the same stand as the Archbishop independently of the Society. Mgr. Lefebvre would be the first to acknowledge this and pay tribute to them. But it would be unrealistic to deny that the establishment of the Society, and particularly its seminaries, has given tremendous impetus to the traditionalist movement. It is unlikely that the indult allowing the Tridentine Mass on a worldwide basis would have been conceded had it not been for the impact made by the Society. Archbishop Lefebvre has retired as Superior of the Society. His place has been taken by Father Franz Schmidberger, whose vigorous leadership is already proving an inspiration to priests and supporters of the Society.

 

A Unique Achievement

When one examines a list of Society foundations and achievements it does seem almost impossible to believe that one man could have inspired such progress in only fifteen years, but when one examines what the Archbishop achieved in Africa, it becomes clear that he is precisely the man who, with God's help and for God's sake, could do so. He will celebrate his eightieth birthday while making a tour of Society foundations which will take him right around the world. This tour, and the countless visits he has made throughout the world since founding the Society, would have been remarkable in his younger days when he was an Apostolic Delegate. The schedule he undertakes is so punishing that few men of his years would even contemplate it. I have had the privilege of meeting him on many occasions in the past ten years. When I did so once more in September of this year, I was delighted to find that he had never looked younger, fitter, or more alert, and that his celebrated sense of humor had never been more lively.

It is not my intention to give the impression that the Archbishop is an oracle, or that he is blessed with inerrancy in all his utterances and actions. He has admitted himself that on occasions he has spoken with excessive indignation. There have been occasions on which his judgment could be questioned, and I do not necessarily agree with his approach to all the points in dispute between himself and the Holy See. But what I am quite certain of is that in future years, when his contribution to the preservation of Tradition can be assessed objectively, his name will be the most honored of any bishop living in the world today. The debt that those of us who are endeavoring to uphold Tradition owe to him can never be comprehended, let alone expressed. We congratulate him on his birthday. We thank him for the inspiration and consolation he has given us, assure him of our prayers, our gratitude and our support, and we look forward to congratulating him on his ninetieth birthday in the hope that he will by then have received the recognition from the Holy See which he so richly deserves. God bless you, Monseigneur Lefebvre!

In medio Ecclesiae aperuit os ejus: et implevit eum Dominus spiritu sapientiae et intellectus; stolam gloriae induit eam. +   +   + In the midst of the assembly He opened his mouth; and the Lord filled him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding; He clothed him with a robe of glory. Introit from the Mass In Medio.

 

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1. Vol. III, p. 756.

2. L'Osservatore Romano, 8 December 1968.

3. The Decomposition of Catholicism (London, 1970), p. 1.

4. ST.II.II. Q. 33, art. 5.

5. Available from The Angelus Press at $5.00 and $7.00 respectively. For a detailed history of Vatican II, see Davies' Pope John's Council, also available from The Angelus Press for $8.00.

6. General Audience, 12 January 1966.

7. Fr. Joseph Gelineau, Demain la liturgie (Paris, 1976), pp. 9-10.

8. See Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre, Volume I, p. 162.

9. Complete text of the article is included in Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre, Volume I, pp. 124-129.

10. See The Angelus Press pamphlet, "The Legal Status of the Tridentine Mass."

11. Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre, Volume II, pp. 255-268.