The Archbishop Speaks

Your Excellencies,
My dear Brother Priests,
My dear friends,

You have come here to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X. Next November, it will be exactly twenty years since our Priestly Society of St. Pius X was officially recognized by His Excellency Bishop Charrière, Ordinary of the Diocese of Fribourg, in Switzerland.

It is, therefore, twenty years since the Priestly Society was established, has expanded, and has striven to increase in numbers her good priests, the real shepherds. Yes, to form good shepherds, that is why the Priestly Society was established; to train good shepherds, good priests.

But what indeed is a priest?

The priest, as defined by the Catholic Church, is he who offers the Sacrifice on the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ. He has the power, by the grace of the Sacrament of Holy Orders that he has received, to offer the same Sacrifice that Our Lord Jesus Christ offered on the Cross. The priest is therefore he who has power over God Himself, over the Word of God made flesh, the power to have Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself come down upon the altar to renew His Sacrifice.

That is what the priest is. Extraordinary power! Incredible power, for poor creatures like us to understand! Just imagine! We have a power over Almighty God, Creator of the universe, over Him Who has created all things, Who has created us; a power to make Him come down upon the altar to renew His Sacrifice!

And by the very fact that he has power over the physical Body of Our Lord, over His Body and Blood, His Soul and Divinity, the priest has power over the Mystical Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Power over His Mystical Body, that is, to lead all men, all of humanity to Our Lord Jesus Christ, to participate in His Sacrifice and through the Holy Eucharist to unite themselves to Our Lord. Therefore, the priest prepares all those souls who will unite themselves with Our Lord Jesus Christ, through the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. He will confer the Sacraments which will prepare their souls to worthily receive Our Lord Jesus Christ, their Creator and their Redeemer.

That is what the Catholic Priest is, and what he has always been. We must remember that. The Priestly Society of St. Pius X has no other goal than to train these priests, who will one day have, through the grace of their ordination, power over God Himself, over the Word made flesh, to offer His Sacrifice, to unite themselves also to that Sacrifice, to be able to give Our Lord Jesus Christ to souls, preparing them to receive the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord.

Are we dreaming? Is it possible that a human creature has such power? Yes, indeed, the priest does! What dignity, the dignity of the Holy Priesthood! What a magnificent vocation, the vocation to the Priesthood! A magnificent vocation indeed! And we have striven during these twenty years, to infuse into the souls of these young clerics, these young seminarians, a deep love of their vocation and for Our Lord Jesus Christ, so that they may truly be the priests you want, for whom you long, whom you need, and without whom you would have no grace in your souls. We need grace in order to go to Heaven. We cannot do without it. That is why we need good and saintly priests.

But, was it really necessary to establish this Priestly Society of St. Pius X? Were there not already enough seminaries in the world? Were there not already enough candidates in these seminaries? Was the establishment of the Society truly urgent?

My dear friends, the object of the most tragic, the most persistent, the most vicious attacks of the devil against the Church, is the Priesthood. The devil hates a true priest, the true priesthood. He hates the true Mass, the Mass which is the Cross of Jesus, because he has been conquered by the Cross of Jesus. Since that time, he has not ceased to attack the priesthood, in order to destroy the Mass, because he knows it is through the Mass that we conquer. Just as Our Lord overcame the devil through His Cross, so too do we priests overcome the devil through the Cross. So he has a grudge against priests! The whole history of the Church, throughout the centuries, is proof of the attacks of the devil against her priests.

But I think that never has the power of the devil been so powerful as it is these days; that never have the attacks of the devil been so intense, so clever and destructive. And why? Because he has availed himself of the authorities of the Church to destroy the priesthood. Up to now, he never succeeded in doing that. Yet, indeed, in our time, the devil is availing himself of the authorities of the Church to destroy the priesthood and the altar. It is not something that is going to happen in the future—we who live today are witnesses to these facts.

And how did this happen? By calling together a Council dominated by an aura of Protestantism. This is the destruction of the priesthood and of the altar, since the Protestants do not believe in the Sacrament of Holy Orders, nor in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the remission of sins. They are destroying the Mass and the priesthood.

Through ecumenism, the devil has succeeded in seeing to it that the authorities of the Church be favorable to some extent so that these destructive practices penetrate the very innermost sanctum of the Church. So, by meeting the Protestant halfway—because that is what ecumenism is, a willingness to meet the Protestants half-way—that they came out with this new Mass. Why have a new Mass? They decided it was a good idea to change the Mass said by the Church for the last twenty centuries, making it clear to us that we might eventually offer the Sacrifice together with the Protestants in some sort of inter-communion. And by doing that, they have also destroyed the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Even if the new Mass is not necessarily invalid, it is certainly poisoned by these evil principles, because it has eliminated to some extent the whole idea of the Holy Sacrifice of the Cross. Now this is of utmost importance, since it is the very root of Catholicism.

Catholicism is founded essentially upon the Cross. If we no longer have any idea of the Sacrifice of the Cross and of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, continuing the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, then we are no longer Catholic.

It is there that we find all the means of grace, in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the pierced Heart of Jesus, in His Head crowned with thorns, in His pierced hands. Yes, it is there that we find all the grace of the Resurrection, all the grace of redemption that we need. If we suppress the Sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ on our altars, if the Sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ is no longer re-enacted on our altars, it is nothing but the sharing of a communal meal. It is no longer the meaning of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church was founded absolutely on the Cross, on the idea of Sacrifice.

That is why we declare to you that the whole idea of Sacrifice is disappearing. You can see it all around you. People do not want to make sacrifice, to deny themselves. They want only to indulge themselves, to look out for their own interests, even among Catholics. Why? Because there no longer exists the idea of sacrifice. The Cross no longer exists. If there is no longer the Cross, then there is no longer any Catholic Church. And this is a very serious matter. It is a complete change of policy which came about during the Council—maybe with good intentions—but one which was certainly not inspired by the Holy Ghost, this willingness to meet the Protestants half way. As a matter of fact, isn't that just what has happened? Protestants have not become Catholic; Catholics have become Protestants.

They have taken on the job of destroying the Cross. And since the priest has been trained to offer the Sacrifice of the Cross, to re-enact the Sacrifice, he has been snuffed out by the very fact that he is no longer a man of Sacrifice, but rather of sharing, a man of the assembly and of fellowship. He is the social leader and no longer the man who offers the Holy Sacrifice. This is a startling change of policy! It is a new idea and no longer that of that Catholic Church.

I had to tell you these things, my dear friends—so sad, so very sad, so very painful. Each day we die a little inside to think that the Church has been contaminated by this idea that has so destroyed it. Pope Paul VI himself called it the auto-demolition of the Church. Yes, the auto-demolition of the Church: the Church destroying herself! We see it every day. And, right now, there is no apparent hope of correcting the situation. The seminaries are in a distressing state of affairs. There are few vocations, and where there are some, the seminarians are poorly trained—they are no longer trained for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. That is why there is hardly any immediate hope, except in prayer and the help of God which will come one of these days, and in our determination to remain Catholic and to defend the Catholic Mass.

Perhaps, some might say, but from now on Rome seems agreeable to permitting the celebration of the old Mass, the Catholic Mass, and therefore there will be no more problem for us. But that is just where we find ourselves at odds because, for example, while Rome authorizes the Society of St. Peter and the Abbey of le Barroux and others to say the traditional Mass, at the same time, they must agree to recognize the Council, in which one is forced to admit to the ideas of the Council. It is a contradiction, because the spirit of the Council manifests itself in the new Mass. How can we expect to preserve the traditional Mass and, at the same time, accept the spirit of the Council which is destroying that very traditional Mass? It is to place ourselves at complete odds and, one day, very slowly, they will oblige those to whom they have given back the Mass of St. Pius V to accept also the new Mass, in order to abide by the agreement they signed, because they have signed that they accept the ideas of the Council and the reforms of Vatican II. One cannot put oneself in such a contradiction, in such unrealistic logic. It is a very uncomfortable situation. That is what is making things so difficult for these groups who now find themselves in a sort of impasse. The only logical attitude, if one wants to preserve the Catholic Faith, is to preserve the Catholic Mass. And that Catholic Mass is always contrary to the spirit of the Council, contrary to ecumenism, to collegiality, contrary to the Liberalism that one sees in the Council. Our Mass is a Mass of Sacrifice. There is only one Sacrifice that opens for us the door to Heaven.

The Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ—that is the real Mass, the traditional Mass. If you want to remain Catholic you must preserve the Mass of the Sacrifice of the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ. If you want to preserve that Mass you must have Catholic priests—priests who believe in it.

So we need Catholic seminaries, as we indeed have, prepared to offer the real Holy Sacrifice of the Cross, to unite all the faithful to Our Lord Jesus Christ, and to lead them to Heaven by way of the Cross.

We cannot live illogically. In order to have Catholic priests, we must have Catholic bishops. There is no choice. That is why we deemed it absolutely necessary and indispensable to consecrate Catholic bishops. Catholic bishops, Catholic priests, Catholic Mass, Catholic faithful, Catholic children and Catholic Church. If we are missing something, if we do not have Catholic bishops, there will be no more Catholic priests. If we no longer have Catholic priests, we will no longer have the Catholic Mass. If we no longer have the Catholic Mass, we will no longer be able to go to Heaven. The door to Heaven is closed! We must be practical!

So, let us be determined to remain Catholic and to refuse any and all compromise with that spirit of the Council that leads to apostasy. Tens of millions of Catholics have abandoned the Catholic Faith to join Protestant sects, in South America, North America and in Europe. Everywhere, millions of Catholics are abandoning the Catholic Faith to join Protestant sects. Why? Because they are not being given the true Mass. They are not being given real priests. So, they are losing the Faith. They apostatize. But we do not want to apostatize, to compromise with the destruction of the Mass that is the spirit of Vatican Council II.

Let us have confidence, my dear friends, in the Blessed Virgin Mary, begging her to see to it that there will be many vocations. Just look at all these children, these flowers of youth here present: the choir from the School of Don Bosco, who delight us with their singing, that in them the dear Lord will nurture many vocations. I do not speak just of vocations to the priesthood; we must also have vocations to the religious life. But since I am speaking of the Holy Priesthood, I attach particular importance to priestly vocations, and it is in our Catholic schools that we will find future Catholic priests. It is obvious. And consequently, in your Catholic families, with many children, there will be born vocations and future Catholic families. That is the Catholic Church.

Let us pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary to send us many vocations so that we may give you the priests you want.

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