The Defense of Tradition
Archbishop Lefebvre and the Popes
At the first Angelus Press conference in October 2010, Fr. Juan-Carlos Iscara gave the opening talk. As the theme of the conference was the 40th anniversary of the founding of the SSPX, Fr. Iscara gave the background of Archbishop Lefebvre's life. Special emphasis is given to the popes who led the Catholic Church in this period.
Many years ago, visiting Italy with a group of seminarians, we happened to be in the ruins of Pompeii in our black cassocks under a scorching midday sun. A group of cheerful Italian nuns, well provided for the occasion with umbrellas and wide-brimmed hats, approached us. Although commiseration and concern for our melting selves were written over their faces, they were thrilled and happy at seeing so many young men readying themselves for the priesthood of Our Lord. We chatted, in broken English and more broken Italian, and soon one of them asked, “What is your congregation?” We proudly answered that it was the Society of St. Pius X. They didn’t know it, but realized that it had to be a relatively new foundation. So they asked the next, fateful question, “Who is the founder?” We hadn’t finished saying “Archbishop Lefebvre” when the smiles disappeared; they made their hasty, near impolite farewells and left us there alone, baking under an equally unforgiving sun.
As we were already seasoned travellers in modern-day, not-so-Catholic Italy, such a reaction was not unexpected, so when it came, although still hurtful, it did not surprise us much. We well know that, in ecclesiastical circles, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre is widely known as the “rebel, disobedient bishop,” branded a “schismatic” and even a “heretic.” But why are such judgments passed upon him? Certainly not on account of his behavior throughout a life that was apostolic, highly virtuous, edifying–as even his adversaries acknowledge–but only on account of and as a consequence of the positions he assumed during Vatican II, when he denounced the conciliar deviations and foresaw their dechristianizing consequences, and later, in the ensuing conflicts with the promoters and defenders of the Council, the Popes included.
In doing so, Archbishop Lefebvre became truly a “sign of contradiction.” As a recent academic puts it, “the word ‘Lefebvre’ has suffered a trans-signification; it has lost its simple function of surname, to become the definition of a distinctive manner of understanding the Faith, the Church, Catholicism itself.”1
Today, almost 20 years after his death, 45 after the end of the Council, 40 after the foundation of the SSPX, when the clerical generation of the Council is passing away and a new generation is coming of age–a generation that has received only a distorted view of Archbishop Lefebvre–it is necessary for us, his children and disciples, to present him anew, reminding the Church and the world who he was and somehow still is, in spite of all distortions–a priest, a soldier of Christ, a defender of the Faith and of the Church, and also, appearances notwithstanding, a staunch defender of the pre-eminent role of the Successor of Peter.
Now, even a summary presentation of Archbishop Lefebvre’s event-filled life would be a massive undertaking. Thus, time limitations have obliged us to choose some vantage points from which to contemplate and present anew his life and work. The thread that we will follow throughout this first conference will be the unbroken continuity of a vital bond of fidelity that united him to the papacy and its perennial Magisterium.
To avoid both repetitions in our exposition and losing sight of this line we are trying to follow, let us present in advance what we consider to be some of the salient characteristics of Archbishop Lefebvre’s priestly and episcopal actions, which stand as witness and proof of this unfailing fidelity. Firstly, in marked contrast to the popular perception of his person and work, he was not overwhelmingly attached to his own ideas. He most certainly had his own opinions, judgments, inclinations, but, in fact, he acted many times against them, in obedience to his superiors and to the Pope. As long as only contingent matters–whether administrative, political, or temporal–were at stake, he yielded and submitted, even if he disagreed. But when the Faith and, thus, souls, were endangered, he reacted vigorously, ever mindful of his episcopal mission, as a successor of the Apostles, a member of the Ecclesia docens–“the teaching Church,” entrusted by God with the transmission of the Faith. Secondly, he knew well that the defense of the Faith cannot be merely passive, but requires a corresponding attack against the contrary errors. Thus, keeping in mind the dictum of Card. Pie, “Destruenda sunt aliena ut nostra credatur”–“The [contrary doctrines] of others must be destroyed so that ours may be believed”–his reaction was habitually two-pronged, consisting in the exposition of the Faith and the refutation of errors. Thirdly, in all his battles he observed what we may call the “law of proportionality,” that is, he had recourse to the means that were most adequate and proportionate to solve the problem at hand–without going to extremes–doing no more, but no less, than what the problem required.
For facility and clarity of exposition, we have partitioned his life in four great, distinctive chronological periods: first, his years of formation, particularly at the seminary; then, his life as a priest and missionary bishop, and later, as a Conciliar Father; and, finally, what we may call “the SSPX years.” We will take perhaps a little more time in the period before his increased notoriety in the world at large, a period less well known even by traditionalists, but in which the seeds of the future were planted, the directions of a life were traced.
The Years of Formation
His early life was already marked by a strong devotion to the Pope. His own family was intensely ultramontane, that is, devotedly loyal to the Papacy and opposed to the tendencies of episcopal independence from the Holy See, commonly known as Gallicanism, which had so much harmed the Church of France in the past. His father, René Lefebvre, had a well-founded distrust of liberal ideas and institutions, finding in his Catholic faith the certainty that a just society must respect God and the hierarchies instituted by Him. Strongly guided by this spirit that pervaded their family, the two eldest sons considered very early on a vocation to the priesthood. When the time came to follow this vocation, René Lefebvre, aware of the mounting crisis in the diocese of Lille–the renewed penetration of liberalism and modernism under the lenient rule of Benedict XV–insisted upon sending young Marcel to Rome, to be safely formed there for the priesthood.
But, long before that, the first recorded episode in the life-long relationship of Archbishop Lefebvre with the papacy is worthy of the fioretti of some saint. After making his First Communion, the little Marcel wrote, without knowledge of his parents, a letter of gratitude to St. Pius X for having allowed him to receive Our Blessed Lord at such a young age. If we may be permitted to express a pious wish, we would like to see in this episode the first providential link with St. Pius X, already hinting at what was to come.
From the custody of a father of strong faith, with clear ideas on matters of religion and a very Catholic understanding of politics, a man who discerned in modernistic progressivism and liberalism the root causes of the prevailing temporal and spiritual evils of the times, the young Marcel Lefebvre passed to the custody of a spiritual father, Fr. Henri le Floch, a man equally decided in the combat against liberalism and modernism, who exercised his paternal role by transmitting a doctrinal and spiritual patrimony, the complete wisdom of the Church.
The French Seminary in Rome, in via Santa Chiara, entrusted to the Congregation of the Holy Ghost, had been founded in answer to the will of the Pope, to fight against Gallicanism and to form the future bishops of France in complete fidelity and submission to the Holy See.
For the young Marcel Lefebvre “Santa Chiara” was a “revelation” and, later, “a guiding light for his whole priestly and episcopal life.”2 The Rector, Fr. le Floch–a friend of the popes, consultor of the Holy Office, defender of the purity of the Faith–taught him who the popes were, what they taught and their absolute continuity in the fight against errors, trying to preserve both the world and the Church from the evils that affect them today. There Marcel Lefebvre learned the “sentire cum Ecclesia,”–“to feel, to think with the Church”–to leave aside all personal ideas in order to embrace the mind of the Church, to judge of all things as the Church does, to see all events in the light of the spirit and the unerring papal teachings.3 As the popes had condemned the modern errors contrary to Catholic doctrine, so he learned to condemn them.4 There, at the French Seminary, he was taught the cult of truth, and the horror for half-truths, or for diminished or dissembled truths.
Many years later, Archbishop Lefebvre acknowledged, to the astonishment and mild amusement of his seminarians, that when he arrived at “Santa Chiara” he had many false ideas, but, he said: “I was happy to learn the truth, happy to know that I was wrong, that I needed to change some of my notions, and I did this above all by the study of encyclicals of Popes who condemned modern errors.”5
He studied a “formally Roman theology,”6 that is, a theology insistent on the existence of a visible and living papal Magisterium, on the infallibility of the popes and of the ecumenical councils participating in their ordinary infallibility. He absorbed this Roman creed, making it his own, to the point where, in any discussion or in cases of doubt, it was enough for him to refer to the Magisterium to dissipate any of his hesitations or contrary opinions. This is the “Romanitas,” the abiding love for Rome and the submission to its Magisterium, that he has transmitted to his priests and seminarians.
Marcel Lefebvre was shaken and upset by the condemnation of the Action Française–a strongly anti-liberal French movement, based upon sound principles of natural law–but he submitted to the papal decisions: “Roma locuta est, causa finita est,”–“Rome has spoken, the matter is closed,” although he could foresee the consequences for French politics. And his submission to Pius XI remained unchanged even when informed about the “absolutely scandalous manner”7 in which the Roman authorities, yielding to political pressures, had dismissed Fr. le Floch from the French Seminary. Many years later, speaking to his seminarians, he would have only words of praise for the doctrine of Pius XI, while limiting his criticism of this pope to a regretful acknowledgement of his entanglements with worldly politics. But still, painful as it was, in this episode there was a providential lesson to be learned, “because it showed the malice and wickedness of the enemies of truth.”8
At “Santa Chiara,” Marcel Lefebvre pronounced for the first time the anti-modernist oath, which he would later repeat on other occasions, when taking office and in his episcopal consecration, and to this most solemn promise before God he remained faithful his whole life: “I firmly accept and embrace each and every doctrine defined by the Church’s unerring teaching authority and all that she has maintained and declared, especially those points of doctrine which directly oppose the errors of our time.”
It was not in his character to take such a promise lightly or to perjure himself.
In these formative years we see, firmly established and virtuously practiced, the essential attitude of Archbishop Lefebvre towards the popes–an attitude of reverence, submission and gratitude, and an overwhelming desire to collaborate with them. Here is the root of his often-repeated “Tradidi quod et accepi,”–“I have transmitted what I have received”–seeing himself as a successor of the Apostles, acting in close union with the Successor of Peter, serving thus as a link in the unbreakable chain of the transmission of doctrine until the end of times. Here is the root of Archbishop Lefebvre’s combat, and the source of his distress and subsequent actions in post-Vatican II times, when he witnessed the seismic shift in the understanding of the papacy brought about by the Council and its aftermath, and the consequent dangers for the Faith and for souls.
Life as Priest and Missionary Bishop
His life as a priest and even as a missionary bishop was lived in a spirit of prompt and effective obedience to his superiors. After his first year in a French parish, close to home, he entered the novitiate of the Holy Ghost Fathers, at that time still fueled by the spirit impressed upon it by its founder, the Ven. Francis Libermann, and thus, still characterized by a strong attachment to the Holy See.
Then followed the assignments in Africa, many in few years. He always went where he was sent, whatever his personal inclinations may have been–and in some cases, clearly against his inclinations–but always devoted to the service of the Church, following with docility the directives of his superiors and of the Popes. “As a missionary, he rose steadily through the clerical ranks, but it is clear that he was almost entirely without ambition in this regard, except in so far as he wanted to exercise his missionary zeal.”9
In 1944, while still in Africa, he received the news of the death of his father, René Lefebvre, in the Nazi concentration camp of Sonnenburg. We have never heard Archbishop Lefebvre boast of this veritable martyrdom of his father, because for him remembrance and gratitude were expressed better by an ever closer fidelity to this example of devotion given by a man who spent himself in the service of his faith, of his family, and of his country.
In 1945, he was sent back to France, appointed as rector of the seminary of his congregation in Mortain, an appointment that caused him another “heavy trial,”10 now that of being torn away from what had become his beloved Africa–but back to France he went.
In Mortain he found the students affected and disoriented by the new, revolutionary ideas that had sprung up during the war years, and tempted by the new experiments being made elsewhere in the world and in the Church. Acknowledging the difficulty to counteract these new tendencies, Archbishop Lefebvre strove to give to his seminarians a solid foundation on the unchangeable, continual exposition of the doctrinal truths by the Magisterium, encouraging them to “sentire cum Ecclesia”–“Never to have a thought that is not in conformity with the truth of the Church.”11
In June 1947, Archbishop Lefebvre was nominated as Vicar-Apostolic of Dakar, and a few months later he received the episcopal consecration from Cardinal Liénart in his native parish in Tourcoing. In the reception following the ceremony, Archbishop Lefebvre expressed again his gratitude to Fr. le Floch, “for having given [him] sound principles of the Faith, for having attached [him] to Our Lord in life and in death, and for having helped [him] to understand the drama which the Church was going through, the errors contrary to truth and against Our Lord”12 and he reaffirmed his own loyalty to the principles learned at the French Seminary. The very liberal Cardinal Liénart rushed to tell everything to the nuncio in Paris, Msgr. Giuseppe Roncalli, the future John XXIII, thus helping to prepare the stage for the drama to come.13
Having proven his worth after a year of service in Africa, Pius XII appointed him Apostolic Delegate for French-speaking Africa, with residence at Dakar. In the brief of appointment, signed by Msgr. Giovanni Battista Montini on behalf of the Pope, Pius XII acknowledged and praised the prudence, wisdom, and activity of Msgr. Lefebvre, and his zeal for the reign of Christ.14 He became thus the representative of the Pope, responsible for 44 ecclesiastical territories in continental and insular Africa and for the diplomatic relations with the French government in all matters having to do with these territories. In this position, “he was one of the most important figures in the Church” in his time.15
The instructions given by Pius XII were clear: to increase the native clergy and to create a native hierarchy; to establish a hierarchy of ordinary bishops and episcopal assemblies; to develop Catholic works, and to incorporate, insofar as it was possible, compatible African customs.16 Archbishop Lefebvre applied himself to this task with his habitual zeal and thoroughness, tempered with a healthy measure of patience and good humor. He did not hide his own opinions, particularly his misgivings about the assemblies of bishops he was establishing and in which he already foresaw the dangers of collegiality, but nonetheless, he “dutifully carried out his responsibilities by obedience, keeping his own thoughts to himself and representing publicly only the thinking of the Holy See,”17 thus upholding the authority of the Pope wherever it was contested.
Pius XII greatly appreciated his Apostolic Delegate, and the sentiment was reciprocated. The Pope is reported to have said to Msgr. Veuillot: “Archbishop Lefebvre is certainly the most efficient and the most qualified of the Apostolic Delegates.”18 Thus trusted, and with his wide experience in the mission field, Archbishop Lefebvre was the foremost advisor of Pius XII for writing the encyclical “Fidei donum,” which reinvigorated missionary work worldwide. On his part, Archbishop Lefebvre immediately realized that there was between the Pope and himself “a great union of thought, that [they] were well united in the desire to extend Our Lord’s kingdom and to live truly the Christian and priestly life.”19 He added: “The Pope was always very friendly with me and provided a lot of support and encouragement. He was a true father, very good, very simple, and at the same time very dignified and very noble. He was a man that commanded respect in those who had dealings with him.”20
In the years after the war, and more clearly with the beginning of John XXIII’s pontificate, it was clear that European bishops in Africa were becoming “undesirable, a burden.”21 First, Archbishop Lefebvre ceased to be the Apostolic Delegate, remaining only as archbishop of Dakar. Later, seeing the drift of events and ideas, he offered his resignation from Dakar, which was eagerly accepted. The Pope transferred him to Tulle, in France, a very small and poor diocese. This could be construed as a “demotion,” and it was most probably due to pressures from the French bishops, who certainly disliked him and were, at that moment, particularly upset over his support of Jean Ousset and the anti-liberal movement of the Cité Catholique.22 Archbishop Lefebvre was keenly aware of these undercurrents of hostility towards his person and ideas, and of the dissolving forces already at work–in Africa, in his congregation, in France, and even in the Roman Curia. Nonetheless, he never reacted against the decisions of the Pope, obeying and, as always, encouraging others to a similar obedience.
With his habitual zeal, always docile to the promptings of Providence, he applied himself to strengthen and restore his new diocese, both materially and spiritually.
Practical and objective as usual, when other prelates were having presumptuous dreams about the priests of the 21st century, he took special care of his own clergy, suggesting to his priests to live together in small rural communities to foster their spiritual life.23
Nonetheless, he had to leave this task unfinished, due to his election as Superior General of his congregation and, at about the same time, his appointment as member of the Central Preparatory Commission for the Council.
The Council and After
During the Council, his predominant concern was “to put forward the Faith in all its purity and integrity.”24 But, from the beginning, the violent attacks against the Magisterium and its essential organs made clear that one of the progressives’ goals was to modify profoundly the traditional understanding of the teaching authority in the Church. As the Council progressed, the chipping away at the magisterial authority increased. Thus, the infallibility of the Pope was presented in the context of the infallibility of the Church, and in this way somehow diminished the import of the Pope’s personal infallibility. But the deadliest blow was delivered by the approval of the decree on religious liberty, a concept that is, by definition, the direct opposition to a Magisterium that imposes the Catholic truth, morally obliging the subject to accept it.
To deal with the problems arising in the Council, Archbishop Lefebvre followed the “law of proportionality” of which we have spoken, that is, he had recourse to means that were not extreme, but proportional and sufficient to tackle the problem that confronted him. Thus, to the influential, unofficial groups of the progressives, he helped to oppose another group, by coordinating in the Coetus Internationalis Patrum the efforts of traditionally-minded Conciliar Fathers. This group, although representative of a minority, was well organized and vocal, and, as such, highly resented by the reformers. And when “Paul VI blessed the adulterous union between the liberal conception of man and society with the Catholic doctrine, [by] reducing systematically the influence of the traditionalists and opposing any declaration which could “hurt” non-Catholics,”25 an implacable persecution started against the members of the traditional Coetus. One of the Archbishop’s cousins, on the other side of the doctrinal fence, Cardinal Lefebvre, declared that he could never forgive what the Archbishop did in the Council–that is (we translate), his active and vocal opposition to the winds of change, based upon his fidelity to the perennial teachings of the Popes.
During the Council, Archbishop Lefebvre did what he could to uphold the cause, the authority of the Pope, putting his trust in him to set matters right–and, in the end, being sorely distressed with the realization that Paul VI himself was aiding and abetting, at least by his inaction, the prevailing errors. Romano Amerio has pointed out how the pontificate of Paul VI marked a turning point in the process of post-conciliar errors. With Paul VI’s understanding of his role as Pope, to which he was conditioned by his personal character, and in the context of the conciliar reforms, came into being a new perception of the Petrine ministry, a shift from governing to admonishing, which was in fact, a renunciation, a non-functioning of the papal authority.26 And this crisis of authority at the top filtered down in the Church, affecting and undermining all other authorities.
The Second Vatican Council became, as Cardinal Suenens put it, “1789 in the Church.” As happened with the events of the French Revolution in 1789, the Council became, indeed, a revolution, a reversal of the existing order–a disorder that constituted a new reality: “the Conciliar Church,” in the expression of Msgr. Benelli, Secretary of State for Paul VI.
In the ensuing doctrinal and disciplinary whirlwind, Archbishop Lefebvre remained steadfast, as he was before–he did not change, although from the outside it may have looked as if he was forcing his way in a contrary direction. For this we have the testimony of Fr. Vincent Cosmao, OP, once prior of the Dominicans in Dakar: “It is the Church which has changed, not Archbishop Lefebvre. He really is the witness of that Church which was certain of her truth, rights and power, and which considered herself alone capable of saying how best to organize society.”27
His work as Superior General of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost, between 1962 and 1968, was the culmination of his missionary life. Throughout his life, he had directed his students, priests, and missionaries according to the principles of obedience and fidelity that he had applied to his own life.28 In the aftermath of the Council, when those principles were rejected and finding himself unwilling to collaborate in the dismantling of his own congregation, there was no other path open to him than to resign from his post and retire. Of his own accord, he accepted to pass the remainder of his life in obscurity, not demanding or expecting anything for himself–but he retired to Rome, to be as physically close to the See of Peter as he had spiritually been throughout his life.
But with the end of the Council, Divine Providence opened for him a new field of mission, this time within the Church…
The SSPX
In the preface of his Spiritual Journey, Archbishop Lefebvre wrote a mysterious and beautiful paragraph:
Before entering–if it pleases God–into the bosom of the Holy Trinity, I will be allowed to realize the dream of which God gave me a glimpse one day in the cathedral of Dakar. The dream was to transmit, before the progressive degradation of the priestly ideal, in all of its doctrinal purity and in all of its missionary charity, the Catholic priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ, just as He conferred it on His Apostles, just as the Roman Church always transmitted it until the middle of the twentieth century.29
This dream became true in 1970.
Archbishop Lefebvre was always aware that, as bishop, he had been given a mission, he had been charged with a special concern for the common good of the universal Church. In the circumstances in which he found himself then, it was for Divine Providence to show the way, to provide the means for securing this common good. In due time, a way was shown. Again using proportionate means, avoiding extremes, he fulfilled his providential duty by founding, not a “Vatican in exile,” but a religious society, our SSPX, to preserve the “Faith of always,” against all the attenuations and reinterpretations, reductions and negations of Conciliar and post-Conciliar times30–and to form priests at the service of the Church and of the Pope, “priests for tomorrow.”
It would be impossible, in such a short space, to give even a more or less summary exposition of the relations with Rome during the years between the foundation of the SSPX and the Archbishop’s death–years filled with events, ups and downs, hopes and disappointments. As those details are easily available in a number of different publications, we have chosen, as an alternative, to refer to Archbishop Lefebvre’s statements of principle, which were the guidelines for his concrete actions during those years. He always made clear his own fidelity to traditional Rome, to the traditional Magisterium of the Church, and wherever he went–in lectures, spiritual conferences, sermons, books–he encouraged others to keep the same fidelity.
In his luminous declaration of November 1974 he stated the fundamental distinction that guided his work and still guides us:
We hold fast, with all our heart and with all our soul, to Catholic Rome, Guardian of the Catholic faith and of the traditions necessary to preserve this faith, to Eternal Rome, Mistress of wisdom and truth. We refuse, on the other hand, and have always refused to follow the Rome of neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies which were clearly evident in the Second Vatican Council and, after the Council, in all the reforms which issued from it.31
The sermon of the 30th anniversary of his episcopal consecration, in 1977, summarizes his love and understanding of the Papacy:
It is an extraordinary gift that God has made us in giving us the Popes, giving us precisely this perpetuity in truth, communicated to us through the Successors of Peter. The Deposit of Faith does not belong to the Pope. It is the treasure of truth which has been taught during twenty centuries. He must transmit it faithfully and exactly to all those under him who are charged in turn to communicate the truth of the Gospel.32
But–he asks–what should we do when, for whatever reason, the Pope fails to fulfill this mission?
We cannot follow error, change truth, just because the one who is charged with transmitting it is weak and allows error to spread around him. We don’t want the darkness to encroach on us. We want to live in the light of truth. We remain faithful to that which has been taught for two thousand years. Never can the Trinity be changed. Never can the redemptive work of Christ through the Cross and the Sacrifice of the Mass be changed. These things are eternal; they belong to God. How can someone here below change those things? Impossible! This is why, without worrying about all that is happening around us in these times, we ought to affirm our Creed, our Ten Commandments, meditate on the Sermon on the Mount, which is also our law. We must attach ourselves to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, to the Sacraments, awaiting the light that will shine around us again. That is all. We must do this without becoming bitter or violent in a spirit that is unfaithful to Our Lord.
And so, my dear friends, be faithful–faithful to the Pope, successor of Peter, when he shows himself to be truly the successor of Peter. Because that is what a Pope is and it is in this sense that we have need of him. We are not of those who want to break with the authority of the Church, with the successor of Peter. But neither are we of those who want to break with twenty centuries of tradition in the Church, with twenty centuries of successors of Peter! We have made our choice. We have chosen to be obedient in the real sense. We want to remain faithful to the successors of Peter who transmitted to us the Deposit of the Faith. It is in this sense that we are faithful to the Catholic Church, that we remain within it and can never go into schism. That is what guarantees for us the past, the present and the future. Sustaining ourselves with the past, we are sure of the present and the future.
As the time passed, it is undeniable that there was a perceptible hardening of his expressions, which ran parallel to Rome’s hardening in its continued refusal to even consider making what he had called “the experiment of Tradition,” and which also corresponded to his distress and indignation at John Paul II’s ecumenical meeting of religions at Assisi in 1986. But, contrary to what some expected or hoped for, he did not succumb to the sedevacantist temptation.
On the contrary, even when Archbishop Lefebvre proceeded to what is seen as the ultimate act of his so-called “disobedience,” the episcopal consecrations of 1988, he reaffirmed the principle that had constantly guided his actions:
There is no question of separating ourselves from Rome, or of putting ourselves under a foreign government, or of establishing a sort of parallel church. It is out of the question for us to do such things. Far from us the miserable thought of separating ourselves from Rome! On the contrary, it is in order to manifest our attachment to Rome that we are performing this ceremony. It is in order to manifest our attachment to Eternal Rome, to the Pope, and to all those who have preceded these last Popes who, unfortunately since the Second Vatican Council, have thought it their duty to adhere to grievous errors which are demolishing the Church and the Catholic Priesthood.
Conclusion
As we said at the beginning, Archbishop Lefebvre’s life can be summarized in one word, fidelity. Fidelity to the principles he received at the French Seminary in Rome, fidelity to the spirit of “Romanitas,” to the spirit of submission to the constant and consistent Magisterium of the Roman See.
Malicious foes and uncomprehending bystanders have considered him a fossil, a relic, stubbornly attached to a past that is now irrelevant, a past that has nothing to say to the world and to the Church of today. To this accusation, Archbishop Lefebvre himself repeatedly answered by paraphrasing St. John Chrysostom’s expression, “I prepare the future by being faithful to the past.” He was not simply attached to the Church of the past. He understood that, by preserving Tradition faithfully, he defended not only the Church of yesterday, but also that of today and of tomorrow. The Church cannot break with or deny her past–because for the Church, Mystical Body of Christ, past and future are identified in an atemporal Present.
As Cardinal Pie, who, on the day of his enthronement as Bishop of Poitiers, exclaimed, “I am a bishop, I will speak up!” Archbishop Lefebvre rendered to the papacy his most signal service by refusing to be a “mute dog,” by elevating his voice as an echo of the perennial papal teachings, by appealing to Rome, with Rome, against Rome.
Where is the proof of this, our assertion of his unfailing fidelity? We may answer that it is to be found in the present attitude of the SSPX, that is, in our certainty that the solution to the present crisis can come only from Rome, that our Society is only an instrument to be used by the Vicar of Christ for that restoration. If we have and still hold this position, it is because we have received it from Archbishop Lefebvre, from his example and teaching, to which we remain, by the grace of God, still faithful.
Archbishop Lefebvre’s so-called “rebellion” was nothing else than the external manifestation and the fulfillment of his episcopal mission of transmitting, as he had received, the doctrinal and spiritual patrimony built up by the Church in almost 2,000 years of a history guided by the Holy Ghost. And in doing so, he has shown himself to be a man of obedience, a faithful son of the Church. His “disobedience” was in fact an act of fidelity, fidelity to the Church and to the Pope. It is ironic that many of Archbishop Lefebvre’s most vocal accusers are precisely those who at every step have attempted to thwart, disobey or simply disregard the most Catholic decisions and teachings of the recent Popes.
Archbishop Lefebvre, living his whole life in this unwavering fidelity, has become thus a witness–a martyr, we may say–to the Papacy. His life may thus appear to us as an illustration of the liturgical acclamation, “Tu es Petrus!”–an affirmation of Catholic doctrine, maintained against adversaries and reformers, and even against Peter himself, when Peter seemed to forget who he is…
Let us quote the moving, final paragraph of Bishop Tissier’s biography of Archbishop Lefebvre:
When God asked, on March 25, 199133 what he had done with the grace of his priesthood and episcopacy, what indeed may he have replied, this old soldier for the faith …? Lord, look, I have handed on everything that I could hand on; the Catholic faith, the Catholic priesthood, and also the Catholic episcopacy; You gave me all of that, and all of that I handed on so that the Church might continue. Your great Apostle said, Tradidi quod et accepi and like him I wanted to say, Tradidi quod et accepi. I have handed on what I received. Everything that I received I have handed on.
Thus, without advancing a future judgment of the Church, we conclude this conference by expressing our pious wish–no, our pious certainty that he has already heard the answer of Our Lord: “Euge, serve bone et fidelis… Good and faithful servant of the Church and of the Papacy, enter into the joy of your Master.”
1 L. M. I. Gardaleta, quoted in Siccardi, 9.
2 Lefebvre, Little Story, 26.
3 Tissier, 35.
4 Lefebvre, Little Story, 28.
5 CONSPEC 36 A, November 30, 1976.
6 Abbé Berto.
7 Lefebvre, Little Story, 29.
8 Lefebvre, Little Story, 34.
9 Stephen McInerney, in http://www.oriensjournal.com/17ghost.htm.
10 Lefebvre, Little Story, 55.
11 Quoted in Siccardi, 110.
12 Lefebvre, Little Story, 61.
13 Tissier, 155.
14 Tissier, 205.
15 Fr. Vincent Cosmao, O.P., quoted in Tissier, 232.
16 Tissier, 210-217.
17 Fr. Jean Watine, S.J., quoted in Tissier, 232.
18 Tissier, 231.
19 Lefebvre, Little Story, 65.
20 Quoted in Tissier, 229.
21 Lefebvre, Little Story, 77.
22 Lefebvre, Little Story, 78.
23 Cf. Angles, Biography.
24 Letter to the Members of the Holy Ghost Fathers, during the First Session of the Council, quoted in Muzzio, 38.
25 Cf. Angles, Biography.
26 Amerio, 143-150.
27 Tissier, 195.
28 Cf. Muzzio, 34.
29 Lefebvre, Spiritual Journey, iii, quoted in Angles, Short History.
30 Msgr. Brunero Gherardini, quoted in Le jugement de Mgr Brunero Gherardini sur le débat théologique entre la Tradition et le Concile Vatican II.
31 Complete text in Tissier, 620-621.
32 In all the quotes taken from this long sermon, we have suppressed the repetitions proper to the spoken style, and slightly abridged the expressions, without altering anything of its substance.
33 The date of Msgr. Lefebvre’s death.
Bibliography Consulted
Current Issue
