April 2006 Print

Bishop Bernard Fellay

You would probably like to hear something about our relations with Rome. I will try to give you some knowledge about this. It is impressiv to see the number of rumors and other things going around. Just this morning, I heard that there is an agreement between the Society and Rome which is about to be announced. As proof, "Bishop Fellay apparently has frequent personal phone conversations with the Pope." Well, if someone can give me his phone number, please feel free.

So many rumors have spread since the audience with the Holy Father, which Benedict XVI granted to us on August 29, 2005. I'll try to shed some light on this situation.

The Principles of Our Activity

I would not like to begin directly with facts, but rather with principles. This is because we live by principles; we certainly do not want to be led merely by facts or happenings. We have an aim, an end, in mind, and these principles dictate what we do or do not do. The first principle which dictates these happenings is that we are and we want to stay Catholics.

If we may say so, the first requirement to be a Catholic is Faith. There is a beautiful Symbol, i.e. a creed, of St. Athanasius which was, in former times, prayed every Sunday by each priest since it was in the Breviary for Prime. Then it was prayed only on the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity. It is the Symbol which begins with the word Quicumque. "Whoever wants to be saved first of all must hold the Catholic Faith; and he who does not keep it, full and integrally, without any doubt, he will enter eternal damnation."

It is clear; if you want to be Catholic, you must stick to the Faith. And the Faith is not something of today; it is based on what God has taught us about Himself in Revelation, which was completed with the death of the last Apostle. Since then, the Church has had the magnificent duty of transmitting the Faith to future generations.

The First Vatican Council has a tremendous description of the role of the Faith and, because of it, of the reason for the foundation of the Church by Our Lord Jesus Christ. The documents from the Vatican Council have only two dogmatic constitutions: One is about the Roman Pontiff and one is about Faith. The one about faith explains what faith is, a supernatural virtue which makes us hold as true the teachings of God through the Apostles and prophets and His only-begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Supernatural means it is above any human means, that it comes from God, and that no one can pretend to have the Faith if they have not received it from God. Normally, we receive it in baptism, so little children get it in this fashion.

When we say faith, we can consider several aspects. We can consider what God has put in us, which is a virtue. We can also look at the object "The Catholic Faith," by which we mean a certain number of truths, the object which is presented to this virtue within us. Then we have the act of faith. If we speak of vision, when we see, the faculty of seeing is the eye. The faith which is put in us is like this eye which enables us to see God, under a veil here on earth, and then in heaven when this faith will be transformed into the light of glory. We will see God in the eyes of God, that is, without any intermediate created instrument; we will see God as He is and how He sees Himself.

This is for heaven, but here on earth, the object of faith is the same: God. Of course, as we are little human creatures, we must split the immensity of the simplicity of God into parts because God is too great for us to comprehend. Because of this simplicity of God, you must realize that if you try to take something away from a simple thing, you lose everything. It's like trying to take a part of a balloon away with a knife. I am not saying God is a balloon, but the Faith is like that. You cannot have merely a part. You have everything or nothing.

The man who says he believes in the Holy Trinity, in Our Lord, and in the Blessed Lady, but who doubts the existence of hell does not have faith. The same goes for someone who denies the Immaculate Conception or any other doctrine of the Church. These persons who allow themselves to discuss any point of the Faith must know that they do not even have a part of the Faith; they have nothing. What remains may look like some kind of faith is but an illusion. Take Protestants for instance: "But I believe in the Bible!" Well, the Protestant has nothing of this reality which we call faith. What they have is only a human thing which we call a human belief. This looks like faith under certain aspects but is in no way Catholic faith, this supernatural virtue given by God without which it is impossible to please God, according to Scripture–impossible to receive grace, impossible to go to heaven. That's the teaching of the First Vatican Council.

Hence, on the side of God, because He wanted this Faith to be transmitted to us through the instruments of human beings, arises the founding of the Catholic Church. You know how it works if you want to transmit a message from one person to another and to another, etc. There is a children's game called Telephone. You whisper something into the ear of your neighbor who whispers it to his neighbor, and so on. It is always fantastic to see the capacity of our imagination and of transmission. But to make sure that the Faith would be transmitted faithfully, God had to intervene with a very special intervention. We call this infallibility. The certainty that the next generation would receive what He told the Apostles is not a human characteristic.

Someone may object, "But we have the Bible!" To which I respond, why then do we have so many different Protestant denominations? They all have the same book, but they all read it with a different eye. And since they claim that they have a direct relationship with the Holy Ghost, no one can claim that he has a better interpretation than the other. So they establish different groups.

The Catholic Church does not work like that. She says that we have the Bible, but we know that not everything is in the Bible. Even St. John says that, although he has written his book, if he were to write everything that happened, the whole world could not contain the books that would have to be written (Jn. 21:25).

So we have what is called Tradition, which is the non-written transmission of the Faith. During the first years after the death of Jesus, Christians did not have the New Testament. The transmission was oral. The Apostles St. Matthew and St. Mark wrote their Gospels around 50 A.D. St. Luke wrote his a little later, around A.D.60 or 62.  St. John wrote his towards the end of the century.

So we have something in writing and something that is oral. But even this is not sufficient. We need an authority which is constantly able to correctly explain the understanding and interpretation of the book. This is why God founded a Church with an authority which would transmit the Faith necessary for salvation, as the First Vatican Council teaches. We all know that while faith is not sufficient, it is necessary. Our Lord told the Apostles "Whoever shall be baptized and believe shall be saved." Therefore there are two elements: Baptism and belief, neither of which is sufficient by itself; faith and grace.

Infallibility: Dilemma or Safeguard?

Thus, we come to the problem of infallibility. Obviously, we are here because of the Faith, but do we contest infallibility? No, we don't. We only see and know that this privilege has been granted to human beings, and that a human being has the particularity of being free, and that God, even when He grants something like infallibility, does not push someone into a kind of determinism. Man is free and God wants us to work out our salvation freely, using our intelligence and will. This is also true of the Pope. In other words, the Pope has been promised the privilege of infallibility, but it is up to him to make use of it. And if he does not want to, he won't be infallible. He must freely make use of it.

Similarly with baptism, if a child is going to die before reaching the age of reason, the parents must baptize the child. It must be freely done. It is exactly the same with infallibility. The Church has explained, to a certain extent, what the nature of infallibility is. Not everything is under definition. When the Pope speaks ex cathedra, making a solemn declaration, the Pope is infallible. We also know that there is another kind of infallibility which is more difficult to explain and define because the Church has not yet given us the definition. This is what the Church calls the universal ordinary magisterium.

Universal means it applies to the whole Church, everywhere. Ordinary is used as opposed to extraordinary. Magisterium refers to a teaching. There was much debate during the proclamation of the doctrine of infallibility. When the Church first taught that we are bound to accept and believe the extraordinary magisterium and the universal ordinary magisterium, the Church said she did not want to speak of the Pope at that time, but of the whole Church. The Pope is covered in Pastor Aeternus, another document, where his infallibility is covered. At that time, they said that the Holy Ghost has not been promised to St. Peter and his successors in such a way that through a new illumination, the Pope could proclaim something new. So the Holy Ghost is not promised, there is no infallibility, if the Pope says something new. This is according to the very text of the Pope's primacy and infallibility.

The text continues by saying, "But through His [the Holy Ghost] own intervention, the Pope may transmit faithfully and conserve saintly the deposit of the Faith." This means that the Pope has infallibility, but under very precise conditions. It must be linked to Revelation, it must not be something new, and it must deal with the faithful transmission of the teaching of Our Lord and Revelation and the holy conservation of the deposit of Faith. It is very, very important to understand this teaching and to keep it in mind. The Pope is not a machine of infallibility. You do not push a button and get infallible teaching.

One of the best proofs of this reality is the Second Vatican Council and the novelties that were introduced afterwards. During the Council, several times, bishops asked the question whether the texts they published were infallible. Other bishops responded that the pastoral nature of some of these texts were linked to human circumstances and were less precise, so we should make, simultaneously, dogmatic texts which define words and terms. The response to this latter objection was always no, because "we don’t want to make a dogmatic Council, we want a pastoral Council." It is very important.

At a certain time, from the Council itself, the question was asked, "So what is infallible in this Council?" A note, an explanation, from the Secretary of the Council, Cardinal Felici, said "What is infallible in the Council is what the Council says is infallible." And you find nowhere in the Council a statement by which the Council says "This is infallible." So what remains of infallibility in the Council is only what was already infallible. If, in the Council, you find something about the Holy Trinity being three Persons in only one God, it's infallible because it was infallible before. But there is no specific act in the Council in which the Council made use of infallibility. And this is something very special. It is the first time in the history of the Councils of the Church that we find this situation: a Council which expressly did not want to make use of infallibility. It's true; it depends on free will, so the Church can make use of it where she wants. At the Council, she chose not to.

If you look at the history of Pope John Paul II, you see that, first, he knew very well what he had to do when he wanted to make use of infallibility. On the other hand, he hardly made use of this infallibility–I would say three times. He used it to proclaim the impossibility of admitting women to the priesthood. And in one document, he used it twice: to condemn abortion and to condemn euthanasia. In the text condemning the ordination of women, he uses precisely these conditions which are necessary to be infallible: he spoke as the head of the Church, the Supreme Pastor. He spoke on faith or morals. He gave a definition and provided clear boundaries. Finally, he expressed his will to oblige and bind the consciences of all the faithful. These are the four conditions of infallibility.

Even then, dear faithful, in this precise text where infallibility is clear, Cardinal Ratzinger said that it was not the personal infallibility of the Pope, since he was only repeating what Tradition had already decided. Thus, Rome itself said that the Pope did not make use of his personal responsibility in this issue. This shows you that it's too simplistic and wrong to pretend that everything which comes out of the mouth of the Pope is infallible. It's simply not true, it never has been, and it never shall be. When we speak so, we speak merely in a negative way.

The Reality of the Mystical Body

So the Faith is necessary. The Church is necessary. If we want to be saved, there is no other way except for the Church which Jesus has founded. Between God and creation, there is an infinite gap. On the side of man, since Original Sin, there is no way to cross this infinite abyss except by the bridge imposed and created by God in His only-begotten Son made flesh, Our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other way to go to heaven except Our Lord Jesus Christ and Our Lord Jesus Christ wanted to associate with this work of Redemption the souls who would be united with Him, in Him, through Baptism, and which constitute the Mystical Body of Christ, the Catholic Church. What a tremendous mystery.

This is why the Church is as necessary as Jesus; because it is the same reality. What is the difference between Jesus and the Church? The Church is Jesus extended in space and time in the souls which are one body with Him, incorporated in Him: the Mystical Body of Christ. St. Paul dared to use unbelievable words: We are the bones of His bones, the flesh of His flesh. It's very expressive to say how deeply we are united with Christ in baptism. But that's the Church! When you say "the Catholic Church," you say "Jesus" plus all these souls who are united to Him.

Because we speak of the Church, I will add a comment, which has two sides. There is the invisible union with Christ which happens through grace, a reality which is real even though we can't see it, and the Faith. We are living members of the Church if we are in the state of grace, through charity. But then, also, because we are human beings and because we are not only souls, but also bodies, Our Lord wanted this union with Himself to be materialized and visible. Thus, although the most important element of this union is invisible, and which we call the Soul of the Mystical Body, the Soul of the Church, there is a visible part. The three external signs of union are open profession of faith, open union with the Pope, and open union in the worship of God. These are the three visible elements of the Catholic Church.

If you went to a priest and said "I am a Catholic," and he asked you to prove it, you would show him your baptismal certificate, a visible sign. You can't just say to him, "I am united with Christ." He would just look at you and say, "Well, me too, but I can't know who else." There must be something from this earth. That's why there are two ways to speak about the Mystical Body of Christ. There is a way where you speak of the visible side, when you speak of the necessity of the baptism of water to become part of the Church.

We know that there are two other baptisms, that of desire and that of blood. These produce an invisible but real link with Christ but do not produce all of the effects which are received in the baptism of water. For example, with baptism of blood or desire, you do not receive the character of baptism. You only receive the grace, which means that those who die with these baptisms go to heaven–because they are united with Christ–but they will not have this wonderful and impressive gift which we call the character. It's noteworthy to see that this is the main reason why certain Fathers of the Church, including St. John Chrysostom, teach that the Blessed Virgin was baptized. She did not need baptism because she did not have Original Sin, but in order to receive the other sacraments, it makes sense that she would have received what allows us to receive the other sacraments: the character of baptism. This is not part of a definition about the Blessed Virgin Mary and we are not bound by the Faith to believe this, but we do have Fathers of the Church who went so far as to say that our Lord baptized St. Peter and then the Blessed Virgin Mary, or that St. Peter baptized our Lady and the rest of the Apostles.

At any rate, it may be surprising, but it is important that these things be clear in our mind. Today, we have so many surprising theories around, and so we must hold fast to what the Church has always taught. And the Church has always taught that you have people who will be in heaven, who are in the state of grace, who have been saved without knowing the Catholic Church. We know this. And yet, how is it possible if you cannot be saved outside the Catholic Church? It is absolutely true that they will be saved through the Catholic Church because they will be united to Christ, to the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Catholic Church. It will, however, remain invisible, because this visible link is impossible for them. Consider a Hindu in Tibet who has no knowledge of the Catholic Church. He lives according to his conscience and to the laws which God has put into his heart. He can be in the state of grace, and if he dies in this state of grace, he will go to heaven.

But these things are so invisible, so subjective, that the Church has hardly spoken about it. We know the principle, but the Church has never made a practical application of it because it is too sensitive and delicate. Who can know who is in the state of grace or not? The Council of Trent teaches that no one can know it except through a special revelation or illumination from God.

The Church does give some signs for being in the state of grace. For example, having a special devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, having a great care of avoiding sin, maintaining friendship with God, following His laws, etc. Thus, there are certain signs by which one can determine whether one is in the state of grace, but to pretend that you can know with certainty, beware: The Council of Trent says that it is impossible without a special illumination. That is why the Church will not speak on this level. The Church only says that if you want to be saved, you have to be Catholic. Period. For the others, it is in God's hands. It's very prudent.

With the Second Vatican Council, we see the opposite approach. The Council essentially says, "Well, there are lots of good people around. It's impossible that all these people will go to hell. So there must be good." Which is true. But the next step is: "The religion which feeds these people is good; you find a lot of good in these religions." And thus you enter into ecumenism, which is the wrong way.

An individual may receive these graces, but definitely not a false religion. You will find elements of truth in any religion. Definitely. But they will be mixed with error and, in fact, that's the essence of error: error is always a gap in the good. A deprivation of a good is something which should be there and is not. You will never find evil by essence. The evil is always a "bite" in the good, if I may say so. It's like the worm in the apple. As long as the worm has something to eat in this apple, this evil will work. Once the apple is totally eaten, the worm will die because there is nothing to eat anymore. This is the same with evil and error. In every error, you will always find something true. If you could find an absolute error, no one would bite because it would be obviously wrong to everyone.

When we believe something, we believe it because we think it is true. At the very moment we see that it is wrong, we no longer believe it. So, the most dangerous errors are those which have the most truth in them because we bite them much more easily. Thus, I may say that the most dangerous false religions are those which are closest to the truth, the most structured, the most logical and coherent, because they give an impression of authenticity. If you have a wonderful meal with very appetizing food, you will enjoy even the look of it. If you put a drop of poison in a dish that looks attractive and place it next to a bowl of food which doesn't even look good, which will people choose? They will choose the one that appears good. This is one of the greatest dangers of error: admixture with the good. You must remember the definition of evil: privatio boni debiti, the failure of a good which is due.

I used this definition when I spoke to Cardinal Castrillon about the Mass. I said to him that the New Mass is bad, is evil. He did not accept that. He even gave a conference in Germany where he said, "Bishop Fellay claims the New Mass is bad, but he is wrong because it has been promulgated by the Pope, and hence, it's good. It is covered by the infallibility of the Pope." This is what he said at Munster. Afterwards, I had the opportunity to speak with him and he said the following about the Mass: "The Pope and I like the New Mass. We think that it is more pastoral than the old Mass. But it is true that there is something failing and so we have to compensate by and with the appropriate cathechesis."

Then I made use of what he had said: "You say that something is failing in this Mass. That is the precisely the definition of evil: the privation of something which is due. You say that something which is due is failing. So you say that the New Mass is bad!"

He had nothing to say, but after the meeting, he asked two of his secretaries, "Why didn't you come to my help when Bishop Fellay attacked me?"

You can see how important it is, then, to have the right definition of things. This is also why, when we speak of the definition of evil, we must remember that sin is the great evil. If you look at Scripture, who can tell what a sin is? How can we say what is sinful? Sin is a failing; something good which is due that is failing. And it is in relation with God Who is infinite. In fact, those who understand the most what sin is are the ones who understand most clearly Who God is. Because a sin or an evil will always be something negative, and to understand something negative, you must first understand what is positive. Otherwise, it is like trying to explain vision to a blind man. A blind man by birth will never understand his misfortune. On the other hand, a man who loses his vision at some point will understand fully the evil of being blind. These matters are not so simple.

Remember that the greatest saints always claim to be the greatest sinners in the world. How can they dare to say so? They are saints! Many of them said it, because they understood in a profound sense who God is. They understood what it was to not give God what was due to Him, even if it were the slightest thing.

Keeping Things in Perspective

We maintain that we need the Faith. We maintain that we need the Church. We run into a problem here, however. When we say we want to be Catholic, we say we are Catholic, we say we stick to the Catholic Faith and the Church, there is a danger. And this danger is to make our own world; even to make our own God. Many people make their own God. This is why St. John says, "He who claims to love God and does not love his neighbor, he is a liar." It's so easy to say that you love God. But, if, at the same time, you do not do your best to love your neighbor, St. John says you are a liar, you are wrong.

So it is important, and we must pay attention to staying in reality about God and the Church. To claim to wipe out the entire Church by denying the Pope, hierarchy, and bishops and to act as if you were then the entire Church–I'm sorry, but such is not the reality, a reality which is puzzling and hard because we believe in the Church, which is Holy and One. And we look for this holiness and unity and we wonder where it is. Where is the unity in liturgy? Every church has its own liturgy.

Sometimes you really wonder if there are not jokers in Rome, especially when you hear someone like Cardinal Arinze, who is responsible for the Congregation of the Liturgy, say that the Pope should not give freedom for the Tridentine Mass because it would create confusion in the liturgy. You wonder if he ever went around and noticed the confusion we already experience now with the New Mass. There is so much confusion already that I don't see how the introduction of the old Mass could bring any more confusion at the level of the liturgy. On the contrary, this Tridentine liturgy will restore unity in the liturgy of the Church, and it will not only be unity of language. Now you go from church to church to find Masses in different languages. Someone told me once, after attending a Tridentine Mass, "We did not understand all the words, but we knew what was going on." Now we understand the words, but we don't know what is going on! Even Cardinal Castrillon told me once, that when he was in Africa, there was a Mass where even he did not know when the consecration was said. So, when I say that we must stay with reality, I mean this: We have to stick to this reality which is called Rome and the Pope. That's why we say that we adhere to Rome, that we are Roman Catholics. Today, many refuse the word "Roman." A lot of Catholics today, especially priests, claim that what is important is what happens in their own parishes, not in Rome. They call the Pope the Bishop of Rome. These are not just words in the air; let me give you an example. Last week, I read the bulletin of a parish in Switzerland where they are getting a new bishop. The bulletin thus described the role of a bishop and they said, "The bishop must be very balanced because he must take and choose what comes from Rome so that he is not too close to Rome, so that he can be close to the faithful." I'm sorry, but we do recognize that there is one person on which the Church has been built: Peter, the Vicar of Christ on earth, and his successors, who maintain this unity of the Church.

Is the Pope gone? The Church is gone, which is why this is not an easy question, and hence you have this crisis in the Church. The famous marks of Holiness and Unity are a nightmare right now. The situation of the Church in general is a nightmare. But that does not mean that everything has disappeared. That is why we stick to the Pope. That's why we pray for the Pope; we recognize that there are still bishops around, even if we don't follow them in everything. We must maintain this, because it is God who wanted it this way. He wanted to entrust His treasures to men, and we know that, by doing so, He allowed the possibility of a certain number of failures. This has happened throughout history. Most heresies have begun inside the Church. Until the Church kicked them out, there were priests, bishops, and deacons who became heretics. It started inside. What does that mean?

On the one hand, we are bound to recognize that there is still someone in Rome who has the authority granted by God to lead the Church. But on the other hand, many times, we try to listen and it doesn't seem like it's Jesus Who is speaking through his mouth. And this is the great drama in which we live. When we think that John Paul II kissed the Koran, in which it is stated that to believe in the Divinity of Jesus is a blasphemy–the Vicar of Christ kisses this book? It is a heart-breaking drama, a scandal in the very precise meaning of the term: something which leads people into sin. The Muslims were obviously happy. But how will they then become Catholics? How can we tell them their book is wrong when they can say "Your boss kissed it!" It is one little example which presents the great mystery in which we live.

I don't mean something confusing by saying "mystery." I mean a truth which overwhelms us, a part of our Faith. Each point of our Faith is a mystery. The Incarnation is a mystery. The Holy Eucharist is a mystery. In the words of consecration themselves, the priest says mysterium fidei–the mystery of faith–when he consecrates. These are truths which are infinitely higher than what we can understand, yet we must submit to and accept them. So, we accept that there is a Pope, even when we see failures.

Obedience Is Easily Misunderstood

Now, of course, we don't follow failures. It's obvious; it's strictly forbidden to do any kind of sin or error. God has given us an intelligence for the truth and a will for the good. Whenever we do something wrong, we sin. And when we sin, we engage our own responsibility, also in obedience. We can never say, "Because I obeyed, the guilt falls on the one ordering." We have our part, because we are free. When we obey, we make use of our freedom. And if we obey wrongly, we sin. It's something which not everybody understands. I remember a Carmelite professor of dogma in Rome who told us, "I prefer to be in error with the Pope." I beg your pardon? "I prefer to be wrong with the Pope." But if you're wrong, you're no longer with Jesus or God!

Obedience is a very high virtue. You cannot have a Catholic without obedience. The Catholic must show his dependence on God, and God wanted this dependency to be shown to other human beings. You will always have superiors, in work, in a family, etc. There is always someone above you, even if you are the Pope. (It seems that Benedict XVI was not allowed to have his cats in his apartment for a time, so he must also obey!) The right understanding of obedience always means that we submit to God. Supernatural obedience is always linked to God. We submit to human beings because they represent God, His law and His word. Now if it is clear that if what we are asked to do is against God's law, you can no longer speak of obedience. Maybe it is submission to a human being, but not to God. This is why St. Peter says to the Sanhedrin, which was the highest religious authority in the Old Testament: "We ought to obey God, rather than men." That was his answer, and that's still our answer too.

We're going to obey the Pope, as long as He uses Jesus' word. Our Lord says, "Who listens to you, listens to Me." So we are eager to hear from the mouth of the Pope the voice of Christ. And when we don't, we are full of sorrow, we can no longer move. And when I say "the Pope," we could say the Council, the bishop–it counts for the same. And we must have this clearly in mind, because the great damage caused to the Church since the Council has been caused through this wrong understanding of obedience, or the understanding of the wrong obedience. It's striking, when you see, when you look, how they have introduced the novelties. It's absolutely unbelievable how they have behaved. I'll give you some examples.

One was the introduction of the New Mass in Italy. You have the official text which comes from Rome, which says, we’ll give two years to the bishops’ conferences to decide when the New Mass will be introduced in their countries. And in Italy they decided to introduce it at the latest possible time, at the very end of these two years. And then, suddenly, in L’Osservatore Romano, you have the text without any signature which said that the New Mass in Italy will be celebrated immediately. The President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, who at the time was Bishop Carli, said to Archbishop Lefebvre, "I am going to make a protest to discover who is behind these texts without any signature!" Here we have a beautiful example of the abuse of authority.

Another one was the introduction of Communion in the hand. The text which introduces Communion in the hand starts by saying that it is no good, that those who have already allowed Communion in the hand are disobedient. And then what? And then they say, "But in these places, they can keep it." And that was how Communion in the hand was introduced into the Church: by stating that it is wrong, but stating that we will let it go. And from then, in each country, it just spread, from a text which was supposedly condemning it, but opening a door at the same time.

The text about Indulgences and penance said penance is very good, so Friday abstinence is very good and we will let the bishops’ conferences decide what the faithful will do on Friday. We can change, and no longer abstain from eating meat. We can replace that penance with something else. And the bishops’ conference decided nothing, so now everybody thinks that there is no binding penance anymore on Friday. This is absolutely not true! But you can find many things like that! They say these things are good, but..., and with the "but" they introduce and open everything.

Take the example of obedience in the religious orders; the Carmelites in France, for instance. There was a meeting of all the superiors–the Prioress, the Sub-prioress or Mistress of Novices—of all the Carmels in France: about 120 persons, maybe more. And at that meeting, a Buddhist specialist or expert taught the nuns that Christian meditation and Buddhism is all the same. It goes much, much further. The Sisters will be obliged to get out of their habits, put on a kind of gymnastics clothing, and put themselves in Yoga positions, and so on, in the liturgy of this Buddhist monk. One Sister protested; she was kicked out of the Order. Then Rome gave her right, but she remains outside, and she is alone, and all the others have gone through this craziness. Their religious orders have been demolished in the name of obedience.

So many times they have introduced psychiatrists, for example, in the Benedictines—very famous: they obliged all the monks to go in front of a psychiatrist. They literally emptied the monasteries. And all this in the name of obedience! Another Sister, she is now with us as an oblate, was commanded in the name of obedience (vow), to watch television. The reason was, "Well, the whole community is in front of the TV for recreation. You are the only one who doesn’t, so you have to join in recreation and come in front of the TV!" Isn’t that nice? to oblige somebody, a religious soul, to really look at worldly things... It’s absolutely not necessary for a religious soul in the name of holy obedience. By obedience her soul is put in total obedience to God, who is going to speak by the superiors. And of course, in such a case when the superior gives such an order, he’s committing a wonderful abuse of power. And of course, in such a case, if you obey, you sin.

We must say no. True obedience in such a case is to say no. Paul VI already recognized this drama in the Church. Paul VI spoke of an auto-demolition of the Church, a self-destruction of the Church. He said it. He said that somewhere in the temple of God the smoke of Satan has entered. Strong words! In the holy Temple, in the holy Catholic Church? Satan? Yes! What does he tell us?–a diabolical possession. Do you know what diabolical possession is? You have someone who has a devil taking possession of his body, and that makes his body move, no longer according to the orders of the soul, which is the real owner of the body, but according to the devil’s angelic might, which is going to be pretty strong–that’s a diabolical possession.

If you say that the devil has entered the Church, in a certain way, you speak of a diabolical possession of the Church. Strong words. But I tell you, to kick out the devil from the soul, from the body, costs a lot. It’s a fight. And now we have to fight, and kick the devil out of the Church. Do you think this will happen without a fight? Well, we live this fight every day. But don’t wonder if you are an object of hatred, if you feel around you suddenly and unbelievably people who look at you as at the devil, and who behave really mean towards you. It’s normal! You’re fighting the devil, and he does not like you! And he shows it through certain people around you. It’s a fight.

Our History and Protective Measures

But this situation in the Church has obliged us to take protective measures. Well, all of you have been put in this situation where you have had to say, "I can no longer go this way. If I go this way, the way of the official Church, the way in my parish, with my parish priest, if I go this way with my bishop, I do wrong!" So you have to say, "No! I have to get out of it!" Why? "Because I have to protect my faith, I have to protect my Catholic status!" And that’s the way the Society started.

You had seminarians who were going to seminary in Rome, who came to the Archbishop in 1968 and they said, "Please do something for us because here in Rome they teach us heresies!" And that’s the way the Society started. At first, the Archbishop did not want to start anything, because he was already old, he was retiring from the Holy Ghost Fathers, but he was so pushed by these seminarians that finally he led them to Fribourg, in Switzerland. It seemed they had already a Catholic University which was more or less in order, and then the local bishop agreed, and founded the Society of Saint Pius X in the diocese of Fribourg, in Switzerland.

And then the Archbishop understood very well, very quickly, that it would be impossible to send these seminarians back to their dioceses as priests, because they would be trapped themselves, this time as priests. So that’s why he founded this congregation, which is ours now, the Society, and that’s why we have schools, again, to protect these children; our Catechism classes, to protect against the novelties which are spread around.

As an example, in Denmark, which is a very Protestant country, you have only one Catholic school. And there is a Catholic doctor who sends his daughters there. And they are introducing something like sexual education, so he tried to do something against it. He followed the hierarchical order, going to the principal, the pastor, the chaplain, the director of the school, and the bishop, yet nothing happened. He went to Rome, and sent a dossier with the whole case, begging Rome to do something.

After awhile the answer came from Rome, from the Cardinal who is responsible for the family. The response said, "Dear Dr. So-and-So, yes, these documents which are presented to me are absolutely unacceptable." So, a clear condemnation of the thing which is done in that school in Denmark. But then in the second paragraph he wrote: "But I cannot do anything against it. So what I am suggesting to you is that you gather and join other faithful around you, and you fight the case."

This doctor told me, it’s like the sheep who goes to the shepherd and says, "There’s a wolf! There’s a wolf!" and the shepherd says, "Yes, yes, there is a wolf. But I cannot do anything. But you, the sheep, get together, and attack the wolf."

You can imagine what’s going to happen! What would happen to this doctor if he were to continue this fight? Immediately the bishop would say "You are disobedient, you have to obey, submit" and so on. And if the case would go again to Rome, they would say the same thing. We have witnessed it so many times with priests who would try to say the Tridentine Mass. The bishop condemns them, they make an appeal to Rome, and Rome says, "Oh, the bishop was right!" One of the beautiful cases was the case of Fr. Somerville in Canada. Fr. Somerville is famous because he was one of the official translators of the new liturgy. And so one day he came back, thank God, and then he became close to us. But then he was summoned by the Bishop of Toronto and he was threatened with suspension if he continued to work with us. He continued, he was suspended. He made an appeal to Rome, and Cardinal Castrillon answered by saying, "Well, the bishop has the perfect right to suspend you!"

The same Cardinal Castrillon told me that the Pope and himself, and Cardinal Ratzinger, and Medina, and Sodano, all agree that the old Mass has never been abrogated, hence, that every priest can say it. He continued by saying, "But you understand, the Secretary, and the Under-Secretary, they don’t agree. So you see, the Pope agrees, the Head agrees, but the Secretary, and Under-Secretary don’t agree, so we can’t give it to you." He said that overtly, in writing. "Some faithful and some bishops think that to allow the old Mass would deprive the New Mass of something and would hurt Paul VI and his Liturgy." So, some faithful and some bishops.

I thought that the head of the Church was the Pope? I didn’t know that it was some faithful and some bishops. But it shows you with what, and with whom we have to deal. It’s not easy. And once again, there is no other way than to take these protective measures just to survive. We have been using survival skills for years; we just try to survive, period. We know that to stay Catholic we have to stick to all the principles, we cannot discuss any of these principles. But at the same time, of course, we are not going to do anything, God willing, that could hurt this faith! If we hurt our faith, we condemn ourselves! We destroy ourselves! We cut the only roots to heaven! We can’t, by any means.

The Work of Tradition

And so you have all these very, very striking, surprising, admirable works of Tradition, like little oases in the middle of a deluge, of an enormous catastrophe of demolition, which is not only surviving but gaining some strength. This is our story. On one hand, we are condemned by the official Church; on the other hand, this official Church in Rome starts to say and to recognize that we bear good fruits. How could it be? Words from Cardinal Castrillon: "The fruits are good, hence, the Holy Ghost is there." And so I asked him, where do these good fruits come from? No answer. Of course; how do you expect him to answer? So we have different levels in our perspective and view of what is happening now.

Let’s look at the past, just to show a little bit that there are principles which we cannot discuss: we want to be Catholic, we have to stick to it, and there is no discussion about the Faith or about Doctrine. There is nothing to compromise. Nothing.

So when we attack the Council, for example, it’s because of the Faith. We see that at the Council there were introduced gaps and holes. They made holes in the boat, and you know what happens when you make a hole in a boat–it’s going to sink. So when they say to us, "Oh, you have a nice boat, so we’d like you to join. But there’s only one condition. Make a hole." Do you think we’re going to say yes? By no means! But that’s the problem. On the one hand, they recognize that we have a nice boat, and they would like to make use of it, because they see that it is a good boat. It’s working, especially when they compare it with their boat. But at the same time they say, "Okay, yes, good, but...you have to recognize the Council. You have to accept the New Mass." And these are precisely the holes! Thus we say no! And that has been the story from the beginning, and that’s the story which continues today.

If you look at the letters which have been exchanged, for example, in 1982 and 1983, in the beginning with Cardinal Ratzinger as head of the Holy Office in Rome–he already dealt with these matters at that time! The Archbishop said, "Okay"; the Pope said, "Okay, I want to solve the problem, but you have to recognize the Council," and so on. But Archbishop Lefebvre said, "No, I can’t. But I would be ready to say that I accept the Council in the light of Tradition." But then, of course, it appeared that it was ambiguous, so the Archbishop then wrote, "I have to make it more precise. When I say, in the light of Tradition, I mean, it is Tradition which judges the Council. That means, that what is in harmony with Tradition, we accept. What is doubtful, where we don’t understand what it means, then you take the meaning which you have in Tradition. And when it is clearly the contrary of Tradition, well then, forget it. You kick it out." That’s what the Archbishop wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger. And Cardinal Ratzinger said, "Well, the first part (accepting the Council in the light of Tradition), is okay. But the remarks which you make afterwards, no, by no means, you can’t." And this is between 1983 and 1985. We are still there, still the same.

Recent Developments

Let’s go to the audience, or just before the audience. Is there any change? Is there anything which has changed through these stages? There are several things which, let’s say, have undergone a certain development. For example, until the year 2000, Rome clearly attacked us. Officially, once again, (since there was individual calmness and friendliness), the position was: "The Society? Bang."

But since the year 2000, there has been a move from Rome which is more positive. We had Rome come to us and say, "We want to solve the problem. We have a problem there, so let’s solve it." It is something positive. I don’t say totally positive, but there is a certain good will on the side of Rome. And we said, at that time, "Listen, we don’t trust you. You’ve been so mean with us, we are not entering into any kind of agreement. First, show that you really want us. And we are not interested in words, we want deeds. So give proof that we can trust you again." And so we proposed two things–we could have done many more–but two things: give the freedom of the Mass, and take away this scarecrow, these bad terms which you use against us, like "excommunication," "schismatics," and so on.

In fact, they have not touched us at all. The Mass we have, so we don’t need permission. And excommunication is like water on the feathers of a duck. That means it makes us neither cold nor warm. We don’t care, because we very well know that it is not fitting. And so it’s not for us, these conditions, or preambles, if you want. We asked for signs to see whether Rome was ready to do at least that, to show that they are, in a certain degree, in favor of Tradition. Because as long as Rome is not in favor of Tradition, once again, not in words but in deeds, there will be no agreement. It is impossible because it means suicide.

When we started with this, the answers from Rome were, concerning the excommunication, "We’ll lift it when we make an agreement." About the Mass, as I said, the Pope agreed, all the heads of the Congregations, the Cardinals, agreed, but the Secretaries and the Under-Secretaries didn’t agree. "So we cannot give it to you." That was in the year 2000. Since then, and John Paul II, there were several back-and-forth exchanges, but more or less always with the same topic. That is, we continued to say, "You are very kind to us, it is very nice for you to think about giving us something like an apostolic administration, but first, you have to regain our trust. And to regain our trust is not just to show us a nice smile, but to show it in the Church, in the life of the Church, that you really do want to reintroduce Tradition."

Problems with the Indult

Now, during these years, the Society of Saint Peter and Ecclesia Dei had several experiences which are interesting, and which are more or less the following:

In the beginning, Rome supported these groups against us, trying to get the faithful and the priests away from Archbishop Lefebvre. That’s why you have the Society of Saint Peter, that’s their reason for existing. And the bishops don’t like them. Many are hard on them, and give them a hard life. And many of the faithful who try to be under Ecclesia Dei have it hard, with difficulties getting their Indult Mass. When they get them, the bishops impose a lot of tremendous conditions. I remember some years ago here, the American bishops decided that you could have an Indult Mass, but there had to be at least two hours between the New Mass and the Tridentine Mass, with no other sacraments: no Baptism, no Marriage, no nothing with the Tridentine Mass. And even now, more or less, there are very few exceptions. They continue these kind of rules.

And so Rome was frustrated. I know of a case, here in the States, where a group of 250 faithful asked the bishop for the Tridentine Mass, and the bishop refused, so they wrote Rome. Cardinal Castrillon wrote five times to this bishop, saying, "Give them the Mass." And the bishop did not care. So you can imagine how frustrated they feel in Rome. In Rome they say, "I am the boss." But the boss is not obeyed.

So around the year 2003, we had the beginning of this reflection in Rome, which went: These traditional people, even Ecclesia Dei, are good people. They are Catholic. So it’s not correct to be so mean towards them. So if the bishops really want to continue this way, Rome was going to do something for them. They were going to set up a structure for them. Of course, the first idea came with Campos. But the idea continued, and last year, from 2004-2005, a Cardinal studied these questions. His name was Ratzinger.

And the idea was to give to these groups what we call an "apostolic administration." So they have been working now on these projects for several years–at least two or three years now. It does not deal exactly or directly with us, but it’s something which is in the air. And then, in this atmosphere, came the death of John Paul II and the election of a new Pope, a new Pope who was known to have criticized the New Mass, among the very few who did, and who has also spoken in favor of the old, who has said that he could not understand how one could prohibit the faithful and priests from the celebration of the old Mass, that that would be an abuse of power, and that he would understand that these people would distrust Rome.

The Audience

So we have a new Pope. There were great expectations everywhere. People said, with this Pope, everything will change; we’ll go back to the old. A lot of rumors went around. When I say "rumor," watch out. Let’s distinguish. I use the word "rumor" only by speaking of things which come from Rome. It comes from people who work in Rome. I don’t speak of what is speculated by reporters, or from sedevacantist sides, or anything else; only what we hear from people who are working in Rome. So we heard pretty soon after his election that the new Pope was going to give to Ecclesia Dei these famous apostolic administrations. There would be several, depending on countries and continents, and this should arrive pretty soon, early in autumn of last year.

We also heard that he would do something for the Mass. Precisely one week before the end of the Synod, someone who was working on the project, or very close to it, was firmly certain that at the end of the Synod, a text would be published allowing, at least partially, the old Mass. And nothing happened.

Well, not exactly nothing. What happened was a counteraction from the progressivists. And it was a letter, written and signed by the Prefect and the Secretary of the Congregation for the Liturgy; a letter–they call it a note–a secret note. Of this "secret note" we know that it has seven pages. And we know that it says to the Pope, "You cannot allow the freedom of the old Mass, because it has been abrogated and abolished by the New Mass." Now author of this letter, Archbishop Sorrentino, the Secretary for the Congregation of Divine Worship, after this letter was kicked out of office. He is now the Archbishop of Assisi. But he is no longer in Rome.

Alas, the same Cardinal, just a few days ago, again said the same, again attacked the Pope, trying to prohibit and prevent the Pope from giving any easiness to the old Mass, in the name of the new. So we have these different rumors, and you see they don’t happen. But it goes even further.

We heard that the Pope had entrusted a certain number of experts in the Vatican to prepare two liturgical "rites." One will be named the "Modern Rite" ("ritus modernus"): it will be the New Mass, with some cosmetic changes. For example, in this new Mass, the old Offertory will be "ad libitum"; that is, the priest will be free to choose between the new Offertory and the old. Some parts will be obligatory in Latin. Two of the Canons will be suppressed (numbers two and four). Then there will be the "ritus Romanus," the "Roman Rite," which will be the old Mass with some, we dare say, cosmetic changes. That is, no prayers at the foot of the altar, the universal prayer before the Offertory, no last Gospel, and perhaps the new lectionary.

So what is this? How far are we bound to believe this is true? I may say about all these things which come from Rome as "rumors," that you should take them this way: as true ideas, projects, and nothing more, as if they came from somebody who is thinking, reflecting, having ideas about what to do? "We could do that, we could do this–let’s try to reflect a little bit on that," and no more. So if these projects one day become reality? Wait and see. Don’t believe that because you hear the rumor in Rome, "this" will happen tomorrow. Don’t believe that. In part, it’s absolutely normal that these people in Rome, who are the authorities, reflect on possible projects.

Now, of course, in the process, we have big problems. And these problems mean that there is a fight in the Church. You have different tendencies. You have the progressivists and the conservatives, and then in Rome you have also other "things" like lobbies, the Mafia, and Freemasons. It’s a whole combination of various things which make these ideas or projects run into counterprojects, different in each city. Things are put into drawers and so on.

Don’t rush after these rumors! Stay on the ground, and say, "I want to see it before I believe it." Play St. Thomas the Apostle. "I will believe it when I touch it." And the same for things about the Society. There are a lot of things going around, a lot of rumors. When I hear through the newspapers like you do what Rome is planning, what is true in it? I have absolutely no idea. And now they speak of "apostolic administrations" and so on. I will tell you what I know about it.

There were four individuals during the audience with the Pope. The Pope, Cardinal Castrillon, Fr. Schmidberger, and myself. That’s all. No secretaries, nobody else. And the Pope started by saying, "So, where do we stand?" And he directly asked Cardinal Castrillon. You have to understand, it’s not just a meeting where everybody can speak. It’s really the Pope who gives the words to you, and that’s it. If you want to say something, you may try to raise your hand. And so, we had the Pope asking Cardinal Castrillon, "Tell us where we stand." And Cardinal Castrillon started by saying, "Holy Father, everything is fine, everything is ready. It’s up to you now to make the regularization of the Society. Everything is fine. Perfect. And I have given to you a proposal of structure for the Society." Now it was the first time that I heard, for years, that Rome had prepared a structure for the Society!

Years before, of course, they had proposed something, but the last time I’d heard about it was in 2003. Now, two years later, I hear the Cardinal has given a firm proposal to the Pope about a structure! I had absolutely no idea about it! And the only thing I know now about it, is that it is a structure! And something more, because the Pope answered, "Yes, I have entrusted this study to the Commission [those are his words, in fact, it is a council] for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts, to be sure that this structure does correspond to the spirit of the law and of the Church." Now to use such words means certainly that it is something new. Maybe analogical, corresponding to something which already exists, but if there’s something already existing, the Pope does not need to make a further study by the experts in Canon Law to make sure that this idea does correspond to the spirit of the Church and of the law. So that means that Rome is thinking about proposing something to us, a structure, which is supposed to protect against...whom?

Let’s suppose the bishops. That’s the only thing I know. And then the Pope turned to me and said, "You. What do you think?" Well, I had to put on the brakes! In fact, the Good Lord gave us a tremendous hint before the audience. A Cardinal told us the way the Cardinals prepare their audiences. When they go to meet the Pope, they send him a note a few days before, about one page, with the main topics that they are going to speak about. This is so the Pope can already think about it, and already reflect on solutions. And that’s precisely what we did.

A few days before the audience, we sent a note to the Pope and we are absolutely certain that the text went into his hands, and that he read it. This note had the major points we wanted to discuss with the Pope. I may say about these points that almost none of them was spoken about during the audience. But it doesn’t matter! The thing was brought to the Pope! In a certain way, I may say, the note was ten times more important than the audience itself. In the note, we first, quoting the Pope himself, manifested the enormous, tremendous, dramatic crisis in the Church. Then we presented the Society, its works, and presented it as a solution to get out of this crisis. But then we said, "It’s not possible for the time being if you do not make changes in the Church." I used the words "Catholic Life"–normal, Catholic, traditional life is made impossible in the official Church. And so, if you want an agreement, you must first make it possible again. And so then we insisted on the freedom of the Mass, taking away the hellish halo.

When he asked me, "Where do we stand?" I went back to this idea that Catholic life is made impossible. It’s no longer possible to have a simple, Catholic life today, in the "normal," official Catholic Church, because the bishops take care of making it impossible. And if somebody wants, let’s say, to live a Catholic life, he is hindered on all sides. If a priest tries to establish in his parish the good things, after a few years he is removed, and the next one comes, and, bang, demolishes everything. The bishop tries to set up a seminary, to make it a little bit more normal, but in between this nightmare, comes the next bishop, and he smashes this seminary. All of what I tell you now are examples which I have present in my head.

Really and literally, the Catholic life is made impossible in the official Church. Some people sometimes are maybe offended when we tell them that, but I say, look yourself. Where do you go to Mass? Can you say that you can go, with blind eyes, to your parish? The law of the Church tells you that the normal place where you have to go on Sunday to your Mass, to fulfill your Sunday obligation, should be the High Mass of your parish. Look at even the conservatives–I don’t even speak of the Ecclesia Dei people, just the conservatives, those who want to just be seriously Catholic. They have to choose! They can no longer go with blind eyes to their parish church, because it can be anything: a clown Mass, a children’s Mass, a jazz Mass, a Coke Mass, I don’t know what, but everything. Everything. Even then they have to make choices. Of course, they don’t go far enough; but that’s as I say: normal Catholic life is made impossible. And it is a strong argument, because it’s an enormous reproach to Rome, but that’s the situation.

So I said, "We can’t say just now that we are sorry for everything. First, these changes must happen in the Church. We have to go step by step: reintroduce the old Mass, take away all these negative attitudes towards Tradition, and then we will see."

Then the Pope started to speak, and he said that he saw see three levels of difficulty between the Society and Rome. And he started with the relation to the Pope, the submission to the Pope. And he said this submission to the Pope has to be effective to be real. And then he immediately switched to the idea of the "state of necessity." He said, "You base your activity on a state of necessity in the Church. But you are not right. You do not have the right to base your activity on a so-called ‘state of necessity.’" And then he gave the reason, and said, "Because I try to solve the problems." These are his words. But with these words you have the wonderful expression, from the mouth of the Pope himself, that indeed, there is a state of necessity–because there are problems, if he tries to solve them! And while he tries, they are not yet solved. So the problems are real, and they are now, and they are not yet solved. So while he does tell us that he tries to solve them, well, we are still stuck in the process that they are not yet solved.

And guess what? In his own, words, after having said that, he finished by saying, "Well, we should see whether there is or not a state of necessity in France and Germany." So he himself opened the possibility of the reality of this state of necessity in France and Germany. But now if you compare France and Germany to the other countries in the world, well really, I don’t see much difference. And so, we have to thank the Holy Father, because he does recognize that there is a state of necessity in the Church! Even if he says we don’t have the right to base our activity on it, he himself says that it is so. It is interesting, anyway.

Then he went to the second level. And he said that the second level is the acceptance of the Council. He said, "The venerable Archbishop Lefebvre signed a formula where he said that he recognized and accepted the Council in the light of Tradition." Clearly meaning with this, that we needed to do the same. Then he continued by saying, "You do not have the right to attack the Council interpreted in the light of a reporter, or theologians. No. It must be, and it’s the only acceptable interpretation, the light of the living Tradition. What matters is the intention of the Fathers, the intention of the text." These are his words. Now the problem is that what we attack is not crazy interpretations; of course, they have to be attacked also, but what we point out is precisely the text. When the Pope says that’s what matters, that’s precisely what we attack. When we say, these precise texts are at the least ambiguous; and we expect from the Council clear texts, not ambiguous ones, we expect that these texts do not need interpretation because they are clear enough.

But when you look, you have something very interesting in the Council. In the dogmatic constitution about the Church, Lumen Gentium, they speak about collegiality. Now, the text of the Council is so ambiguous that the Pope (Paul VI) had to write a note that is joined to the texts of the Council, a note that you are supposed to read before you read the texts of the Council so that you have a right understanding of the text. The official name of this note is "Nota Prævia," a previous note, a note you have to read before. That’s already sufficient to express one point, that’s not the only one, but that’s the ambiguity of the text!

If the text is ambiguous, whoever would have read it would have understood it in a certain way. If the text is clear, well, at least the majority would have understood it correctly. If it is ambiguous, no, because you will come on the text and say, what does it mean? And you will say, maybe it means this, maybe it means that. And if you have a progressivist’s heart, an inclination to new things, you will say, "Ah, it means this!" And you will have another who will say, "No, it means that!" And you have a fight! So why make a text which is not clear? It’s a waste! A waste of time, of energy, of everything. And that’s already, I may say now, the least objection we have against the Council. We have much more severe criticisms; that’s already one level.

And of course, there are some errors. One of them is what we call Religious Liberty. The Pope clearly indicated in the words he used during the audience, that for him, it is impossible to accept someone in the Church, at least in his, let’s say, modern way of looking at the Church, who would not accept the Council. He was very clear. When I heard these words there, and especially one word afterwards, for me, the big fight we will have under this pontificate will be the fight about the Council.

I do consider that the fight for the Mass is more or less already won. Even though right now we don’t yet have it, there are enough elements here to see, to understand, that we will get it. We will get the old Mass. It may take some time, maybe some fighting, but the very point of the fight will be the Council. And why? Because we have a Pope who is convinced of the goodness of the rightly interpreted Council. More than that. His way of thinking is such, that for him, there is no other alternative than the Council.

In his speech to the Cardinals of the 22nd of December, he expressed it. I think we can consider that this address given to the Curia for the New Year’s greeting is definitely the most important text of his whole pontificate until now, much more so than his encyclical about God’s charity. There is no comparison. This text of December 22, 2005, deals with the Council and the interpretation of the Council.

In the first part, the Pope condemns the interpretation of the Council which has been done in the name of the spirit of the Council. He says that no, that is a wrong interpretation, it cannot justify the novelties in the name of the spirit of the Council. That cannot be.

It’s a good point, but it is not enough. Anyway, you could consider that with this he is condemning about three quarters of what has been done in the Church under his predecessors, and maybe it is correct to say so; I am not absolutely sure. But what does he really mean? Obviously, he does reject too modernistic, too progressivistic behaviors in the Church which pretend to be based on the Council. That is clear. But then he explains that it was a duty of the Church to redefine, to explain, to study, a new relation between the world and the Church, and that’s the work of the Council. He gives three levels of new relations between the Church and the world: 1) the relation between modern philosophy and the faith, or, if you will, science, which is broader than just philosophy; 2) the relation between the Church and the modern State, what we call religious liberty; and the third level will be the relations between the Church and the other religions, and especially Judaism.

The Underlying Philosophy

In his speech, he develops to a certain extent the second point, religious liberty, and to a certain extent the relations between faith and science, and not so much the third point, the relations between the Church and the other religions, but the theory is the following (which is very interesting because it shows us what kind of philosophy the present Pope has). He says, that in the 19th century, the world was very radical against the Church, and so the Church had to take a very radical position against the world; hence, the very strong condemnations of the modern world which you find in the 19th century, like the condemnation of liberalism in Quanta Cura and the Syllabus; modernism, by St. Pius X; Mirari Vos, etc. And then he continues by saying: But you see, after that, there is a change; there is an evolution in this modern world. The modern world is no longer so radical against the Church; now the modern State is much nicer than before, and he gives as an example the state of the United States—the relation between the State and religions. He says that before, science pretended to have all the answers about God and so on, but now it does recognize that it does not have all the answers.

What kind of philosophy do we find there? In fact, we see clearly that the present Pope does not have the philosophical formation which we may call the classical formation, the formation which was given in the Church before, which relies on Aristotle and the Greeks, and on the Middle Ages and St. Thomas, and which is a very realistic philosophy. At the level of knowledge classical, Thomist philosophy tells us that God has made us in such a way that for us to know something, it has to go through our senses. Whatever we know comes from the senses. But then we have in our mind a wonderful capacity which "reads into" the thing and which discovers the essence of the thing, and forgets about all the accidents, that is, the things which are contingent. The mind leaves these aside and goes straight to the thing. An example: You show a child a tree, a pine tree. You tell him, "That’s a tree." The little child will say, "Tree," and then the little child will turn around and he will see an apple tree. The shape is totally different; that is, the accidents, the things that come to our senses, are totally different—the leaves, the shape, the fruits are different. But the little child turns to this and says "Tree!" Why? Because his intelligence has gone to the essence of the thing. That is what is wonderful with the way God has made our intelligence. It works like that: we call it abstraction. We abstract from all these things which fall under the senses, and we go straight to the essence, to the thing that does not change. All that falls under the eyes changes: color, shape, flower, fruit.

Now, our present Pope has another understanding of knowledge. For him, we are not able to separate the essential from these contingent things, which makes it that when we speak of something, we have to constantly be adapting to the new situation. That is why what the Church said in the 19th century about the situation of the world was fine, but for that time. And now, as today, we are living at a time when the contingencies are different, so we can no longer apply what the Church said two centuries ago. We have to speak in a new way, in the new circumstances, with the new contingencies. With this, you become crazy.

But you have a very direct application on the very matter of religious liberty. In an incident which happened between Archbishop Lefebvre and Cardinal Ratzinger, Archbishop Lefebvre said, "How do you expect us to follow this religious liberty, as it says exactly the opposite of what Pope Pius IX’s encyclical Quanta Cura said?

And Cardinal Ratzinger answered, "But Your Excellency, we are no longer at the time of Quanta Cura." You see, Quanta Cura was good for the time of Quanta Cura, but now we are no longer at that time.

And Archbishop Lefebvre answered: "If things are so, I’ll wait for tomorrow."

Because tomorrow will no longer be the time of Vatican II. And in a certain way, that is the argument that I am already using now. I say, "Vatican II, that’s the past. It’s 40 years ago, now it’s something new, something else...so let’s go back to the old."

But that is dramatic, you know.

Living Tradition

It goes even further. When he speaks of Tradition, he speaks of living Tradition. Now, what is living Tradition? That is himself. Living Tradition, that is the Pope, who says today what he understands from yesterday. He makes or gives today a re-reading of the past: that is living Tradition. Can you understand that with this we are stuck. There we have a big problem, because when we say "the Council in the light of Tradition," we mean that it is the past, what the Church has always said, the things which do not change, which have always been like that, that is going to judge what the Church says today. And we have a Pope who says, "No, Tradition is the way the magisterium does explain what the Church has always believed, but today." So, once again, it’s him.

I just guess that you understand that we have a big problem there.

If I may say, the thing is very complex. Why?–because on the one hand, we have a Pope who clearly does or would like to see some improvement in the liturgy, and, who knows, most probably, a reintroduction of the old Mass. I would summarize it by saying, that his heart is conservative. He is a man who is serious about his faith; he is somebody who has a very Catholic family origin, and who is happy with it, and who dreams of it. He is a man who likes discipline, order. He likes religious to have their religious habit and their religious rule. At the same time, his mind is modernist and liberal; and there we have a big problem.

The Christian State

In this speech to the Cardinals on the 22nd of December, he is going to express to the Cardinals that the Council has assumed one point which is essential to the modern State, which means the State is impartial towards religions. It is neutral—no rule for Christ in the State; the State is neutral for any religion. He will say that, of course, the State should respect good values, but what does this mean. Oh, we go much further. He says that the Church, by making the State "laicized" or secularized and no longer confessional, is going back to the Gospel; that the Church is now in harmony with the Gospel. He is striking out, he is condemning 1,700 years of the Catholic Church. The Church for 1, 700 years has always promoted the Catholic State. When you look at the Apostles, the missionaries, consider what they did: they went to the king. They tried to convert the head, knowing very well that when they converted the head [of State], the head would issue laws which would help all their subjects to convert, at least to behave better, and, who knows, to go to heaven. That is what they did.

When you have a Catholic State, you mean a State which binds itself to follow and to apply God’s law, to respect the law of God, which means that, at the temporal level, which is the level of human behavior, the State will organize itself in such a way that it will help souls to make it to heaven. I come from a little Swiss canton, the Republic of Valais. It was a Catholic State—not Switzerland, just the Valais. I remember that the police would intervene and separate people who were living together without benefit of marriage. I remember the time when a judge overruled the policeman who had fined a woman for wearing a mini-skirt. Now, when the judge overruled the policeman’s decision, this created a great scandal. But you see with these little examples how a State which respects God’s law can indeed do a lot, tremendously, to help souls go to heaven. And, of course, if the State does not care about God’s law, it is going to make any kind of law and give all kinds of permissions which will lead people straight to hell.

So when you look at this aspect, it is not difficult to understand why the Church, during centuries and centuries, insisted on saying that the State must be–as far as it is possible, of course–Catholic. If you have a State where there is a great mixture of religions, and if by saying that now the only religion which will be accepted is the Catholic religion and you would start a civil war, of course you will not do it. Of course, you have to be sure that the civil order will be respected. That is what we call tolerance, and the Church has always taught tolerance. It is perfectly understandable, but nevertheless, you tend, you try to work for the ideal, and you don’t give it up. It is very clear: Our Lord is the King of kings; He is the one who gives authority to any authority here on earth. Call them Nero, Stalin, Gorbatchev, Bush—anyone; St. Louis, king. All of them, Catholic or not, they have received their authority from God, and the very day they die, they have to go before their Judge to give an account of the way they have made use of this authority. And this Judge is Jesus Christ, their King.

So I really don’t understand how suddenly a Pope can demolish all this teaching of the Church. But that is what he does in this speech, on a matter which was the determining point for Archbishop Lefebvre about the episcopal consecrations of 1988. Archbishop Lefebvre asked of heaven signs: Should I or should I not consecrate bishops. And he said that he got two signs from heaven: one was [the October, 1986, prayer meeting of religions at] Assisi, and the other one was the answer to our questions on religious liberty.

Now, once again, you see here that we are stuck. We are facing an enormous problem, because it is clear that for the present Pope this new behavior is self-evident; and for us, the Christian State is also self-evident. Something which is self-evident is something which you do not demonstrate, you just accept it as such. And so here we have a very serious conflict.

An Illustration

And you can see, as I have shown you, the consequences are enormous, absolutely enormous. I’ll give you another example now. It is a little bit tricky; I hope that you understand it. Right now, in the Islamic States, there is a big uproar, because in Denmark, about five months ago, a newspaper produced some offensive drawings insulting to Mohammed. There has been an enormous uproar, to such an extent that the Islamic States as State came together–for example, the Arabic League, and made an official protest against Denmark and Europe, saying, that they cannot allow it, that they must punish the newspaper, the cartoonist, and so on. In this incident, you have the State intervening in a religious matter, and bringing to bear all its weight to protect and defend a religious interest. Of course, in this case it is clearly abusive. But I use this example to show you that, if you have a Catholic State, the Catholic State will stand up to defend the interests of the Catholic Church.

I’ll give you an example. Right now in Sudan, there is a persecution by the Moslems against the Catholics, and they make slaves, hundreds of thousands of slaves. If there were a true Catholic State, this Catholic State would stand up and say to Sudan, "Stop that." Or in China, there is a persecution against the Catholics, too. You see, as there is no Catholic State, nobody will stand up to defend the Catholics’ interests. And, excuse me, when you look at the politics that are driven now by the authorities of the US, you will see that they intervene on certain topics which are maybe genuine, but they do not intervene on others, and you wonder why. In the US, you fight for freedom; so why then does nothing happen about Sudan, which is making slaves. Curious, isn’t it? And we could go down a long list; we could take Zimbabwe, the way President Mugabe is behaving, killing his own people by famine, and so on—an unbelievable State. So why in this country does nobody react. I use all these examples to try to explain to you how deep it can go, and how important it is to have a State which puts itself under the law of God.

The Two Powers Distinguished

That does mean, and the Church has always said, that you have to distinguish between the powers. The State has to deal with the things of this earth, and the Church with the things of heaven. So it is not for the Church to dictate where the roads should go; that is a matter for the State. But in the things which deal with human behavior and salvation—for example marriage—then definitely the Church has something to say; on the subject of education, the Church has something to say.

And here we have a big problem, because the present Pope is totally modern there.

Back to the Report on the Papal Audience

So I go back to the audience now. We are still at the second point of the audience, where he says that the Society has to accept the Council in the light of the living Tradition. And we are not going to accept the Council in the light of the living Tradition. We are not, because we can’t.

Then he spoke about the third level of problems. He said that he understands perfectly that the Society needs a structure which is going to protect the members. In other words, the Pope understands that we are not going to mingle or mix with any of the craziness that is happening all round. In other words, he understands that he has to give us a state of exemption, which means that we would not be under the authority of the bishops. So you would have a kind of structure of your own.

If you look at the structure Rome is reflecting on giving us, I think it is good. I think I would go so far as to say that we could not dream of a structure that would be so good. But that is not the problem; the problem is not there. The problem is in that they want us to swallow the poison of Vatican II. The structure is good, but what help can we find if we get a superb structure, let’s say a Rolls Royce, but if at the same time we must take in the Rolls Royce and eat rotten apples. Well, I prefer my two-horse car with good apples than the poison, because if I take the poison, I will be killed; and then what about the Rolls Royce? It doesn’t matter, you see.

The whole thing is about this poison that they want us to swallow, and we say, "No, we are not going to swallow it."

You may say that that was the audience. Then a few days after, as I saw that we are going to have a big problem with the Council, I wrote a letter to the Pope. It was on the 3rd of September, just four days after the meeting, in which I said that I thanked the Holy Father for this audience, but I did not see how I could agree with his vision of the Council. And I added a comment on the new Catechism which he has just published, the Compendium of the Catechism. He was pretty mad... He spoke of arrogance bordering on sectarianism. Okay. Anyway, we put our points down, and then Cardinal Castrillon answered that letter in the name of the Pope, saying, Why did you write that to the Pope? The Pope receives you kindly; he points out the problems, and then you throw them in his face. And I thought, what am I going to tell him; how shall I answer him. I told him, "Because I do not want to have the same problems of conscience that the majority of the priests of the Society of Saint Peter and three fourths of the Campos priests have. That’s why I wanted to say clearly that I do not agree with the Council." And then, in this same letter, the Cardinal invited me to a meeting.

This meeting happened on the 15th of November. That is the only time I have met with Cardinal Castrillon after the audience, so all the other rumors are just rubbish. It was about two and a half hours of discussion, which was for once, I may say, very interesting. The other times it looked like you would not discuss. This time, at least, I was able to develop our positions. Then we had a meal together, again for another two and a half hours, so the whole lasted five hours. What was very important was the two and a half hours at the beginning. And there I again used the line, "We cannot trust you." That was the start. You propose, you want an agreement. The Pope says I agree, we have to go by steps but that we should go speedily. It is very clear that the Pope would like to solve the problem, regularize our situation.

Why? There are probably different elements. One of them is that he does recognize that the situation of the Church is a mess, that it is a catastrophe. He does recognize that the Society has good fruits, and he would definitely like to use the Society to help in this mess. This side, I think, cannot be questioned. At the same time, he clearly, definitely wants us to swallow the Council. So what we try to tell him is that we cannot have both. If we have fruits now, it is precisely because we get rid of the Council; and if we swallow the Council, we swallow the poison and we are down to your situation. And so it does not work. But the problem is that for the time being he has not yet understood that.

But he is in a hurry. Maybe because of his age, maybe because he has something on the conscience from the time of the consecrations (that is a maybe from me; I’m not sure—I could imagine). Maybe also because we are bothering them. We are all around the world; we are very active, and we cause trouble. We are troublemakers in many countries of the world, and we are terrorizing the bishops. They retaliate with the usual measures like excommunication and so on, and we don’t care, first; and then we continue. And then even worse, what they have just said to condemn us is publicity for us. So it drives them crazy, and they complain to Rome. And so you can understand that Rome says, let’s make a deal with them. If we have a deal, we will be able to control, at least to a certain extent, their movements. So you have this part, too. And I definitely do not exclude that reflection in their eyes.

No Solution for Now

And that is why we are not ready for a practical solution. We tell them so, and that is what I told Cardinal Castrillon: Look now, precisely now we have faithful, we have religious, we have priests who join us. They join us because they are facing scandals; they are facing situations which are unbearable for them. They come to us; we warn them. We say, "If you come to us, you will be censured, you will be excommunicated; you will be labeled with all kinds of bad words; you will lose your friends; and you will have a very hard time." And nevertheless the faithful, the priests prefer to join us rather than to stay where they were. How can they expect that suddenly, through some kind of agreement, they are brought back to the situation they have just left. It is impossible. Of course we don’t want it.

And so I told him, you first have to make this Catholic life possible again. And for this you need to condemn what is wrong at the level of the Faith, of the teaching of the universities and in the seminaries; at the level of behavior and discipline; at the level of the liturgy. At all these levels, you have to take things in hand: that means to condemn what is wrong, and to make it known. And then I continue by saying that even that is not sufficient. You also have to be positive, favor the traditional life, promote it.

And then I continue by saying, "Now, forget one instant that we exist. Forget about the Society. You are still in the same state of catastrophe. So solve your problem; forget about us. You solve your problem, and we are no longer a problem, because we are not the problem. Of course, these are hard words, but then I continued speaking about the Mass. I said, "The Tridentine Mass is mighty, it is powerful, and the Church needs that Mass to re-center the Church on Christ, on sacrifice, on the spirit of the cross. And that is not happening with the New Mass; you will never have it."

Then I went on speaking of the Council. I said, "Good point, you do recognize that there is a crisis in the Church. We do, too, but we do not agree about the cause. We say it is the Council. You say, it is the world. And at that moment, I gave a letter from Archbishop Lefebvre, the letter to Cardinal Ottaviani of 1966, written one year after the Council. Archbishop Lefebvre describes how with the novelties in the Council, you will have the damage in the Church which we call the crisis in the Church. One year after the Council, Archbishop. Lefebvre described the whole situation which we have now. We could not have a better proof of the correctness of our stand.

I made a lot of comments there; it took a lot of time. I also said that in the Council there are a lot of ambiguities. I said, some points are erroneous, but there are also all these ambiguities, all these openings to error. And, well, I did not say this to the Cardinal, but I say this to you, to try to help you understand this point. When they say that the crisis is caused by the world, of course it is. When you look at the situation of the world and at the situation of the Church, you will see that there are many things in common. And it is true, it is the spirit of the world which has entered the Church. This is true, and we are not going to say the contrary. But this is as normal as opening the doors and the windows when a storm is coming in. What do you do at home when you see the storm coming in? You go all around the house and you close as quickly as possible all the windows and doors, because you know very well that if you leave them open, the storm will come and the water will come in and there will be a beautiful mess. Now, if you come home and you see this mess, all the carpet wet and so on, you don’t say that it is the storm that did it. You say, "Who left the windows open?"

The same example can be given with the hen house. You come in in the morning and you see so many hens killed, just feathers here and there. And you say, it is the fox. Of course it is the fox, but once again, the farmer does not say it is the fox. He says, "Who left the gate open?"

And the same holds true with the Council—it is exactly this. At the beginning of the Council, in the very first speech of John XXIII, he said, that he wanted to open the windows of the Church to the world, to have some fresh air from the world. There is even a comment from Paul VI, who said, we were expecting fresh air, and the storm came in. There you have it.

It is so simple You want to stop it? Shut the door. Close the door to this spirit of the world. That is precisely what they don’t want to do. And so as long as they continue this way, the Church will be in a bad state. That is what we say: Stop it. Stop this; go back to the normal state of the Church, and don’t let the spirit of the world go round.

That’s about Rome and the present situation.

The Very Latest News of Rome

And now you have probably heard that last Monday (Feb. 13) there was a meeting in Rome of the Pope with the Cardinals speaking about us. I don’t know more about it than you; the only thing I know is that, that very morning the secretary of Cardinal Castrillon telephoned Menzingen to ask for prayers for this meeting. That is as much as I know. I know that Cardinal Arinze did attack us, or attack the Mass. And that’s all; I don’t know more than you, and I have nothing to do with it. I am not involved. It is pure reflection from the Vatican. And as things are, we have to count on probably one day Rome will come to us with a proposal, and in the package will be a stipulation that you will have to accept the Council, and we will say no. And we will be back to the present state. That is the situation. Probably they will try to make us the bad guys again, those who don’t want to agree and so on, but, okay, we will make our stand. Every day we take it as it comes.

Reason for Continued Conversation with Rome

Now we could say, but is it worth it to discuss things with Rome if things are like that? Is it worth it? Yes and no. If I weigh everything, I come to a yes, not directly, but indirectly. You see, the Church is in a bad state, and those who govern the Church are used to this state of affairs. If nobody is presenting them other thoughts on this situation, they will be stuck in it and they will not get out of it. So, we do it; at least we try to do it. We try to present them another view on the situation. "Listen, you say that the world is the cause of this problem, but look around. And if it is really the world, then why do you keep it? Take it away!" That is a way to express it.

So we try to work on them, and of course work on the level of thinking takes an enormous amount of time. You can never think what these high people in Rome will say. They will think about it for hours and hours, if they think about it at all. And maybe one day they will say, "Okay, let’s try to find a way." It is in God’s hands. What we see: we see some fruits, not so high, but on the level of bishops, of priests. There are several bishops who definitely do agree with us, even in Rome, but they don’t dare speak, and they know that the day they speak, they are out. So it is to their conscience. There we cannot go any further. We try to provide them with thoughts, reflections, then it is up to them to act. We can’t take their place.

The SSPX on the
Horizon in France

Another development is a development in France, which is very interesting. In the last two years, but even now in the last month, there is a very, very new, curious development in the behavior, I don’t say of all the bishops, of course not, but of a certain number of bishops in France towards us. And what is it? It is a kind behavior. It is bishops who would like to speak with us. And when we speak with them, we clearly see that they still think as before. They don’t agree with us, so why do they speak with us? The President of the Bishops’ Conference said roughly the following: About ten years ago the French bishops thought that Tradition would die out as their supporters died off; that it would be finished. Now they are obliged to include the Society in their ecclesiastical horizon. So to say, we are now part of the picture. In other words, they can no longer erase us. They already understand that they are obliged to deal with us. Already we represent a force which is not yet very mighty, but which is strong enough so that they cannot just ignore it; they have to deal with it.

It is true that the situation in France is a bit special. You have first the Church there which is rapidly going downhill. Then you have the problem of the Moslems, whose numbers are rapidly increasing in France. And then you have the problem of the State, the State which, for the last two years, has been putting pressure on the bishops, saying, "We pay for the maintenance of your churches, which are empty. But this is the taxpayers’ money; this is the community’s money for your buildings which should serve for the community, so do something."

Now the bishops are coming to realize that they are facing a very big problem, because what are the community groups which are interested in these churches? The Moslems. And so, looking at all that, at least some of them are starting to get close to us. Even some of them is a start, and we shall see if there will be a development there, if they start to offer us churches, if they start to open some churches for ceremonies, as they have done at Lourdes, where we now have access to the great basilica for the Mass; at Lisieux also. But that is only after 20 years of fight. Every year we had a fight, and now they no longer fight. They just leave them open to us. It does not mean that they agree with us. Let us say that they turn to a more peaceful co-existence. That is the progress I can see in France. It is an interesting one.

There is another reason for this change in their attitude, which is also interesting. They realize that Rome is about to give an apostolic administration to the Ecclesia Dei people. That means that the French bishops will lose control over a certain part of Catholic life in France, precisely that part of this life which is the most alive. Even if they have not understood everything, the Ecclesia Dei faithful at least want some seriousness in their religion, and they still have some life in comparison with the dying, modern Church. So now the French bishops realize that, if Rome is going to impose this, then these people will be out, exempt from their jurisdiction, and so they are going to lose a part of this already dying Church. So what they are trying to do now is to set up, themselves, something for the Indult, traditional-minded people in such a way as to make what Rome is planning unusable or unnecessary.

Opening Moves of a New Era in the Combat

Till now the French bishops have been very strong against anything traditional. But now, because of this move of Rome, they are changing tactics in order not to lose everything there. In other words, if I may say, speaking of tactics, obviously we are entering into a new time. Till now, you had a time of trench warfare, so to speak. You had two positions which were more or less fixed, we on our side and Rome on its side, and we would shoot back and forth at one another. In Rome and in France, where we see it even more clearly, they are now starting a new way of war, which is a war of movement. They come to us; they start to make proposals to us. In France, they are doing all these types of movements, and we have to watch out, because this is creating a new situation, a new situation where we have to do some moves, too—but, of course, correct moves understood in the sense of tactics or strategy of combat. We are not in a peaceful situation; we are in a situation of war. But if we just stay in our position while the other is making a move, you may have what you had in France during the battle of Caesar against Vercingetorix at Alesia. The Gauls were encamped on a high position. And what did the Romans do: they encircled it and starved the Gauls, and the Gauls lost. They lost because they stayed in their camp without trying to escape.

And so what we have to do now is to reflect, to imagine ways of attacking, if I may say so, the other in order to counter these maneuvers. You see, the idea of making an apostolic administration for the Indult Mass groups is that Rome will try to give them more weight, more importance, because they will then have bishops against the Society, making available an easier traditional life, with bishops and so on, than the one we have because we are constantly attacked and so on. The goal is to try to offer the faithful an easy situation, and to try to draw away from us once again the faithful and the priests. So we have to see how we are going to counter that.

There is the good Lord, and He is taking care of us, but if I describe this to you it is so that you understand that we are entering a new situation, which will probably be harder than before, harder because Rome is getting closer to us, in part with good intentions and in part with bad intentions. So we have to be very, very cautious in this situation. But the problem is that this new situation can easily create confusion. What we have experienced these last few months is a very beautiful example of this possibility of confusion, with rumors flying around: Bishop Fellay is going to sell out the Society, they are going to make an agreement, they are going to compromise, and this and that. What can I say? Keep your feet on the ground; don’t let your emotions get your heart going up to 150 beats a minute because you have heard something from the Internet. Please don’t. We have a telephone line. We want to be Catholic. It has been 40 years that we have been fighting, and we are not going to give up now just like that.

But, once again, it is a long fight. In the long run, we know that we shall win, because God is on our side. It is so obvious, it is so clear. Every day we see it. Every day we see all these graces, all these blessings that are poured out by God on us in all the places. It is so obvious. Our Lord said that if you want to know the quality of a tree, you look at the fruits. Now, once again, even Rome says the fruits are good. We are not making a self-appraisal. It is always dangerous to estimate yourself, because easily we could....We don’t want to put something like that on our heads. No, we are not going to do so, but we look at objective things. We know that there is a promise of God: "The gates of hell shall not prevail," so one day the Church will come back to Tradition. What we all have to do is our best. This day may come and soon.

I say our best, at our place, with sacrifices, prayers, and also by defending the faith with studies. We try to go on the dogmatic level, bringing to Rome and to the bishops reflections on the present teaching of the Council, hoping that one day we will see something better. I don’t think it will be tomorrow, but it is in God’s hands. God knows how, and He is the one who leads things. We must remember that. When we see such a crisis, such a catastrophe, we forget that there is a God above, a God who cares, a God who has not lost control. We have the impression that everything goes wild, and we see God sleeping in the boat, peaceful. Yes, He is in peace, because all these things in comparison and in relation to our salvation are only superficial in the sense that they can be dangerous, but as long as we stick to God, God is going to use them for our salvation. He is going to turn these things unto good for His glory and for our merit and our salvation. And so what matters is that we stick to God at all costs, whatever happens. That is the thing. All the rest–diplomacy, politics, and so on–comes after. What matters is that we be saved, that we go to heaven. That is what matters. And we know that for that, we have to stick to the principles, and that is it. So don’t be disturbed if they tell you that you are schismatics, you are excommunicated, you are this and that; don’t be disturbed. You do exactly what your forefathers did, what the saints did to go to heaven. How could that road be suddenly closed? it is the way to heaven.

We know also that those who want to be pious and faithful to our Lord shall suffer persecution. St. Paul said it; it is a promise of our Lord: You want to be faithful? You will have to suffer something. Great. It is a sign, it is a good sign. The day we have no crosses any more and no problems is the day we shall have to worry. As long as we have crosses, blessed be God.

This conference was transcribed by Angelus Press and reviewed by H.E. Bishop Fellay before publication.