Gabon’s Fathers in the Faith

Marcel Lefebvre was sent on a mission to Gabon from 1932 to 1945.

https://fsspx.news/en/news-events/news/gabon-celebrates-its-fathers-faith-51589

The bishops of the country, the representatives of the Episcopal Conferences of Central Africa, and the president of the Pontifical Missionary Works, who came from Rome for the occasion, gathered together in Libreville to celebrate the jubilee year marking 175 years of the evangelization of Gabon which ended on September 29, 2019.

“Celebrating the 175 years of Holy Ghost Fathers missionaries coming to this land is important not only to the Church in Gabon but also to the sister Churches. Indeed, from Gabon, the Fathers of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit—better known as Spiritans—have gone to spread the Gospel in neighboring lands such as those of the current Congo Brazzaville, where they arrived 30 years later,” Bishop Francisco Escalante Molina, Apostolic Nuncio to Gabon and Congo Brazzaville, told Fides.The first Catholic missionaries who arrived in Gabon in 1844 were all French. When they left Bordeaux on September 13, 1843, they were ten: Bessieux, Regnier, Maurice, Audebert, Roussel, Bouchet, Paul Laval, and three young men, André, Jean, and Grégoire. On their arrival in Gabon on September 28, 1844, they were only two: Jean Remi Bessieux and the young Gregory Sey.The ordeal of a long journey had decimated the troop: before reaching the coast of Gabon the missionaries had stopped at Gorée in Senegal, Cape Palms in Liberia, Grand Bassam and Assinie, and Côte d’Ivoire.

Soon, the Spiritans settled, built churches, catechized the natives and took care to convert the local rulers first. Starting in 1844 the sovereigns Denis and Quaben, who had very good relations with Bishop Bessieux, asked for baptism.

Then, a sign of a flourishing Christianity, seminaries were built and that soon opened, to welcome the first Gabonese vocations.

Long before the founding of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, Bishop Marcel Lefebvre, then a Spiritan missionary, was sent to Gabon to train the future indigenous clergy in the 1930s. Among his pupils, three became bishops.

Half a century later, in 1986, Catholic Tradition established itself in Libreville with the founding of the Saint-Pie X Mission, which continues to spread the faith as it comes from the Apostles.

Archbishop Lefebvre’s final days

I’d be remiss not to post this excellent article, with the recent passing of the Anniversary of the SSPX Episcopal Consecrations on the 25th, a day, a ceremony that will be remembered in the annals of Catholic history one day, as the day that the apostolic traditions were preserved & handed on for future generations. Praise the Archbishop for that!

https://sspx.org/en/news-events/news/anniversary-archbishop-lefebvres-death-look-his-final-years-46428

The rapid geographical expansion of the Society in England, France and the United States of America, as well as the influx of candidates for the priesthood, reassured Archbishop Lefebvre in his conviction that his work was serving the Church and saving the Catholic priesthood.

Despite the Roman condemnations, which were painful both to him and to his Society, because he refused to implement the liturgical reform, Marcel Lefebvre persisted: “To obey,” he said, “would be to collaborate in the destruction of the Church.” He pursued his initial goal: to form priests with zeal for the true teaching and sanctification of souls. Besides Econe, he founded a seminary in the United States (1974), another in German-speaking Switzerland (1975), which would be relocated to Germany (1977), a fourth in Argentina (1979), a fifth in France (1986) and a sixth in Australia (1986).

Centerpiece of the Society: the priory

The founder, who was also the first superior general, met with his priests for yearly retreats, explained to them that the priories, in which they led a common life of prayer, study and apostolate, are bastions from which they must let their light shine forth all around in various fields of the apostolate. Besides its priories, the Society established chapels and missions, but also primary and secondary schools. The priests are assisted in their work by the brothers of the Society.

Thanks to his two religious sisters, the prelate then founded the society of the Sisters of the Society of St. Pius X and a Carmel, which soon spread (Belgium, France, Switzerland, United States).

Several institutes of women religious, both teaching and nursing sisters, united their works to those of the priests of the Society, as well as societies of priests or men religious founded with the encouragement of Archbishop Lefebvre: Benedictine, Capuchin and Dominican communities that looked to him.

Age did not slow him down

The archbishop traveled throughout the world to preach the pure Faith in its fullness, to support families and to encourage the laity. He also conferred the sacrament of confirmation, despite the frequent displeasure of the local bishops.

In 1982, at the age of 77, he resigned from his position as Superior General of the Society and left the government thereof to his successor, Fr. Franz Schmidberger. For a long time he hoped that one bishop or another would take care of the confirmations and especially the priestly ordinations after he was gone, or more reliably, that Rome would once again recognize the Society of St. Pius X by giving it a modified canonical status: sufficient freedom of action in relation to the dioceses, and the grant of at least one bishop, a member of the Society, to confer holy orders.

But his efforts along these lines with the Roman authorities failed in May 1988. Given his advanced age, and not wishing to leave hundreds of seminarians and thousands of lay faithful orphans, he had no alternative but to consecrate four bishops himself, despite the opposition of Pope John Paul II. On June 30, 1988, in Econe, with Bishop de Castro Mayer, he consecrated his successors in the episcopacy.

“Operation Survival”

In agreeing to incur unjustly the penalty of excommunication, he deemed that the situation of necessity of the faithful, caused by the modernism of the highest-ranking ecclesial authorities, justified his act, which he called “Operation Survival”.

With complete peace of mind and soul he passed away on March 25, 1991.

Archbishop Lefebvre & Assisi

The Assisi meetings of apostate worship of false gods put the Early Church Martyrs to shame & was nothing less than the Catholic Church spitting in the face of every martyr who was ever put to death rather than deny Jesus Christ.

https://sspx.org/en/news-events/news/archbishop-lefebvre-and-spirit-assisi-40901

Answering questions from the periodical Pacte in 1987, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre stated his views about the interreligious meeting called for by John Paul II in Assisi on October 27, 1986:

Monseigneur, your latest public statement is a violent protest against the prayer meeting in Assisi…. Don’t you get the impression that you are confusing the ecumenism of Pope Wojtyla with the distorted ideology of interreligious dialogue—so much in vogue in recent years—that denies the historical uniqueness of Christian salvation?

I see only one type of ecumenism, the type promoted by the Council, which underscores respect for and collaboration with false religions, which are placed on the same footing. This is a new concept, in contradiction with Tradition, which has been imposed in this way. In place of the “missionary” Church appears the new “ecumenical” Church.

The meeting in Assisi canonizes this new Church, and that is an immense scandal. On the other hand, this initiative has a significant precedent: almost a century ago, in 1894, in Chicago, a spectacular congress of world religions was held in which some American Catholic bishops participated. If you compare their speeches then with what the Pope said to the cardinals last December about the “spirit of Assisi,” you find impressive analogies.

But a century ago Pope Leo XIII unconditionally condemned the participation of the bishops of the United States in the Chicago Congress. No, this is a scandal, a public blasphemy: think of the Catholic missionaries in Africa who saw on television the representatives of the animist religions praying in Assisi at the Pope’s invitation…. In what spirit will they be able to continue their arduous work of evangelization among the populations who follow those pagan rituals? If salvation is possible even without conversion to Christ in the Church, and while continuing to adore one’s own false gods, what sense does mission work make? All religions, after all, are equal and good….

 

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If this pope had lived at the time of the Roman persecutions in the early centuries, maybe Christianity would have found a respectable place in the Pantheon of religions.

Sources: FSSPX/archives – DICI#341 9/30/2016

Archbishop Lefebvre & the Holy Ghost Fathers (3)

The third article in the series about the battle between the Holy Ghost Fathers & Archbishop Lefebvre.

The Year of All Dangers

On March 7, 1968, the weekly Rivarol published an article by Archbishop Lefebvre entitled: “Some Light on the Present Crisis in the Church.” This public stance caused quite a stir among the members of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost. The Superior General denounced the “doctrines that question the truths considered until now to be the immutable foundations of the Catholic Faith” and expressed his dismay at seeing them spread inside the Church by the action of her ministers. He recalled the divine foundation of the institution of the Church and the assistance of the Holy Ghost, promised to the Magisterium in order to reject error and heresy. He lashed out at the “joint efforts of the Communists and Freemasons to modify both the Magisterium and the hierarchical structure of the Church.” In their eyes, collegiality and the spirit of democracy are the perfect means to “ruin the Faith by corrupting the Magisterium of the Church, to stifle personal authority by making it depend upon multiple organisms that it is far easier to infiltrate and influence.”

Archbishop Lefebvre recalled how Christ asked persons, the Apostles, and not a collective group, to feed his flock. The Magisterium can never be made subject to a majority. In both teaching and governing, collegiality paralyzes authority and makes the salt of the Gospel lose its savor:

Only in our times has there begun to be talk of the Church in a permanent state of Council, of the Church in continuous collegiality. The results have not taken long to appear. Everything is upside down: the Faith, morals, discipline.” The consequences could already be seen: “The Church’s power of resistance to Communism, heresy and immorality has considerably diminished.

Lucid and clearsighted as it was, the article was bitterly discussed in the congregation and earned its author and the Provincial of France several letters of protest. At the seminary of Chevilly, the director, professors and students voiced their unease and their refusal. Fr. Hirtz, General Councilor, wrote to Fr. Morvan, the Provincial of France, on April 12 to tell him just how well he understood and shared the various reactions. He believed that the Superior General’s declarations, publicly expressed in a “classified” journal, “cause a serious prejudice, sow division and disarray among the members of the Congregation and, alas, compromise the success of our upcoming General Chapter” (Béguerie, p. 405).

The Opening of the Chapter

This was the atmosphere when the General Chapter began in Rome on Sunday, September 8, 1968.

In his report, Archbishop Lefebvre proposed several reforms, such as entrusting the General Assistants and Councilors with more responsibilities, reorganizing the provinces, postponing the date of religious professions, accepting non-religious missionary candidates, etc. He also presented the resignation of the General Council, but this did not mean that the congregation was without a head.

In fact, the Chapter was supposed to be purely administrative, since the superiors had been elected in 1962 for a twelve-year term. Archbishop Lefebvre intended to go to the end of his term, but in 1967, he began to consider resigning. After an interview with Cardinal Antoniutti, prefect of the Congregation for Religious, on March 14, 1968, he wrote to tell him on May 7 of his decision to resign from his charge. Indeed, it would have been difficult for him to remain, as his Assistants had announced to him their intention of resigning as soon as the Chapter opened, “no matter what” (Perrin, p. 167).

During the first work session, on Monday, September 9, the chapter members neutralized the powers of the Superior General in the direction of the Chapter. In order to do so, they abolished the two-thirds majority rule prescribed in the Constitutions. A simple majority was then enough to adopt the following motion to relegate the Superior General to the role of an honorary president and hand the direction over to an elected central committee. Archbishop Lefebvre protested, asking that the Superior General be president by right of this Committee in charge of directing the Chapter’s work. In the end, his request was refused by a vote of 63 to 40 on Wednesday, September 11. What a humiliation!

The chapter members did, however, accept the presence of the Secretary General with a vote of 54 to 52. Whatever denials were later made, it is clear that the Chapter was organized democratically in order to “make a profound reform by returning to the Gospels, to the founders, and by adequately adapting to today’s world” (Fr. Morvan’s report on the departure of Archbishop Lefebvre).

At 11:30 a.m., the First Assistant announced that he would preside over the session, and Archbishop Lefebvre left the Chapter. The work continued in a peculiar atmosphere. The rules in effect were suspended, the secrecy on the deliberations was abolished, the novitiate was replaced by periods of spiritual formation and internships, obedience gave way to co-responsibility, dialogue, team work, and group dynamics, and the missions became a “dialogue of salvation” in the ecumenical spirit of the times. Some students and young fathers appealed to the Chapter as “experts on the mentality of young people” and this appeal was voted in (Béguerie, p. 442).

On September 30, at the 4:00 p.m. general assembly, Archbishop Lefebvre reappeared and read a text he had prepared during his stay in Assisi, where he had gone to reflect and pray. He exhorted his brethren to remain faithful to the spirit of Fr. Libermann and to strive for holiness, which is essentially apostolic. The means to do so are “the religious life and community life which bring about the life of self-denial, the life of prayer, and the life of fraternal charity…”. He lamented the state of mind that was spreading and leading to the rejection of these means:

Their individualism, their selfishness, and their thirst for freedom and independence have prevailed against the religious life, community life, the life of obedience, and prudence with respect to the world, the life of real detachment from the goods and comforts of this world. They have prevailed against the realities of life in community which is our mortification and compels us to practice charity and live the life of prayer.

On October 4, the freshly resigned Superior General went to the Sacred Congregation for Religious. In the absence of the prefect, Cardinal Antoniutti, he was received by Archbishop Mauro the new secretary. Archbishop Lefebvre explained to him that he was no longer a member of any committee and that he was no more than a simple spectator of the revolution in progress. The secretary responded:

You understand, after the Council, you have to understand…I am going to give you some advice that I have just given to another Superior General who came to see me about the same thing. ‘Go on,’ I said to him, ‘take a little trip to the United States. It will do you good.’ As for the chapter and even for the congregation’s present business, leave it to your assistants! (Bishop Tissier, p. 373).

The authority of the Superior General collapsed because it was not supported. There was nothing left but to throw in the towel. The final word had been spoken!

For the Honor of Archbishop Lefebvre

During the Chapter, very few defended Archbishop Lefebvre and the authority of the Superior General. Luc Perrin quotes the beautiful declaration of the Brazilian Fr. Cristovao Arnaud Freire on September 20:

The goal of the Chapter is to adapt, not to destroy… It is surprising to hear criticism of the Pope, the bishops and the Superiors from priests who are among us but who are really enemies of the Church and who let their passions lead them. From the very beginning, the Chapter has been dominated by a pressure group moved by personal grievances against Archbishop Lefebvre and incapable of distinguishing between his person and the Superior General… This Chapter is really a confabulation. That is why he has decided to withdraw from it and to return to the bush, contenting himself with praying to Our Lady of Fatima for the authors of all this evil.

Archbishop Lefebvre continued to take care of the day-to-day business and strived to maintain cordial relations with all. He even made suggestions to the Chapter as to the nature and end of the institute. In the end, Fr. Joseph Lecuyer was elected Superior General on October 28. On November 1, Archbishop Lefebvre left the General House and took refuge at the Institute of the Holy Ghost, on Via Machiavelli. Thus ended his mandate as superior, reduced to naught by the conciliar torment.

The last public act of Archbishop Lefebvre was to appear at an audience granted by Pope Paul VI to the members of the Chapter on November 11, 1968. After that, he withdrew for good. Providence had its plans. One day, he had confided to Fr. Michael O’Carroll: “If ever I have to leave the congregation, I will found a traditional seminary and in three years I will have 150 seminarians” (Bishop Tissier, p. 375).

A new chapter was about to begin. It would be written in Ecône.

— Fr. Christian Thouvenot

Sources: FSSPX / FSSPX.News – 9/13/2018

Archbishop Lefebvre & the Holy Ghost Fathers (2)

Following up from the previous post, here is the second article, continuing the story of the early days of Archbishop Lefebvre & the Holy Ghost Fathers:

https://fsspx.news/en/news-events/news/story-archbishop-lefebvre%E2%80%99s-resignation-2-40484

A Contested Superior

As member of the Coetus Internationalis Patrum, the group of conservative conciliar Fathers who tried to counteract the progressivist schemes and resist the imprecision and erroneous opinions expressed in the aula, Archbishop Lefebvre did not have the unanimous support of his congregation. Many were disappointed to see the Superior General of their congregation take sides against the innovators. Especially since he was not the only Spiritan bishop participating in the Council.

Forty-six Spiritan bishops participated in the sessions. Eleven of them, all French-speaking, expressed their growing unease as their superior’s position as a discordant voice became more and more pronounced. They drew up a document in which they mentioned the “disobliging remarks” from French bishops and cardinals in Rome, many of whom stayed at the French Seminary. On November 30, 1963, these eleven bishops presented their grievance to Archbishop Lefebvre, reproaching him for supporting Verbe, the journal of the Cité Catholique, for criticizing the newspaper La Croix, the press organ of the bishops of France, for his letter on wearing the cassock, that was not in keeping with the spirit of the times since it went against the dispositions of the French episcopate allowing clergyman suits, for Fr. Lecuyer’s departure from the Roman Seminary, and for his choice of the Canon Berto, who was not a Spiritan, as theological adviser to assist him at the Council. They also reproached him for taking a public stance at the Council (see Philippe Béguerie, Vers Ecône, Desclée de Brouwer, 2010, p. 255-257).

His calls to order on the priestly spirit, the necessity of prayer, the religious and apostolic life, and his warnings against Communism, secularism, and materialism were scarcely in keeping with the spirit of the conciliar aggiornamento either.

The time had come for a general reassessment of the methods of apostolate and the organization of missions. Besides the liturgical novelties and the unconditional openness to any and all experiments, the religious were quite taken with psychology and psychoanalysis. The magic word was seeking personal fulfillment, as Luc Perrin explains in his study (“Mgr Lefebvre, d’une élection à une demission”, in Histoire, monde et cultures religieuses, #10, June 2009, p. 165). The Spiritan province in Holland experienced an emblematic crisis: in a few years’ time, the scholasticates, novitiates and seminaries were emptied. The habit, the rules, the community prayers, the liturgy, the taking of and fidelity to the vows, everything was abandoned or transformed (see Côme de Prévigny, “Mgr Lefebvre: d’un chapitre à l’autre” in Fideliter, #244, p. 74).

A revolutionary wind had blown in.

For a True Aggiornamento

For the time being, after the promulgation of the decree Perfectae Caritatis on October 28, 1965, Archbishop Lefebvre loyally undertook to reform his Congregation. The letter he signed on January 6, 1966 ordered the local superiors to have their communities study the conciliar texts and collect the suggestions they inspired in preparation for an administrative General Chapter. To this end, he created four commissions to prepare the reforms of the legislation, the formation, the religious discipline and the apostolate. But he intended to conduct all these reforms in such a way as to bring about a “true aggiornamento of the congregation regarding the religious virtues.”

Amidst all the talk of “independent learning and independent training”, Archbishop Lefebvre spoke up forcefully against this “abdication of authority in what is its essential role,” and against “the lack of realism which ends up causing chaos and indiscipline, represents a bonus to those who are daring and strong-headed, and leads to good, humble, and submissive religious being scorned.”

“Let us have our aggiornamento not in the spirit of a destructive neo-Protestantism that ruins the sources of sanctity” but “driven by the holy desires that have inspired all saints who were involved in reform. They were reformers because they loved our Lord on the Cross, and practiced obedience, poverty, and chastity. There, they acquired the spirit of sacrifice, oblation, and prayer which made them into apostles.” (Bp. Tissier, p. 364).

Despite his efforts to limit the effects of the conciliar reforms, a general slackness was spreading in the congregation. The first thing to go was the discipline of the religious life, but there were also many departures and a lack of perseverance among the candidates, and the life of prayer and contemplation was depreciated, giving way to activism in the accomplishment of the congregation’s works. To remedy this situation, Archbishop Lefebvre drew up an ambitious project in the beginning of 1967, hoping to implement a better formation for members and a better preparation to the priesthood and the missionary religious life.

In the meantime, the preparations for the Chapter were well under way. He entrusted it to the prayers of Padre Pio, whom he visited on Easter Monday, 1967. The holy Capuchin took a very dim view of the changes that would soon lead his own religious family to write up new constitutions. On September 12, 1968, he would write to Pope Paul VI these revealing lines:

I pray to our Lord that the Capuchin order continue its traditions of serious religious austerity, evangelical poverty, and observance of the rule and constitutions, while renewing its vitality and interior spirit according to the directives of the Second Vatican Council.

One might as well try to make a circle square… This attitude reveals the torment so many Catholics experienced during those years.

Already published: The Story of Archbishop Lefebvre’s Resignation (1)

Archbishop Lefebvre & the Holy Ghost Fathers

https://sspx.org/en/news-events/news/story-archbishop-lefebvre%E2%80%99s-resignation-1-40399

 

The Society is publishing a series on the battle between the Holy Ghost Fathers & Archbishop Lefebvre, over the doctrine & morality crisis that began to attack the Church in full force during the days of the Council.  Archbishop Lefebvre, saintly man that he was, handled his Congregation with such love & care, addressing the problem head on.  The following is the first article:

Fifty years ago, in the midst of the raging upheaval caused by the Council, one man found himself faced with the weighty task of assembling a Chapter to update his religious congregation and adapt it to the times. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers at the time, and in the midst of the dilapidating chaos, the experimental activities, the contestation and the upheaval, he chose to withdraw.

The story of the forced resignation of the Superior of one of the Church’s most important religious congregations is a page of history that reveals much about the crisis the Church is living through.

Elected by a Large Majority Six Years Earlier

In 1968, Archbishop Lefebvre had been superior of his congregation for six years. He was elected by his fellow religious with a large majority on July 26, 1962, in the second round of votes, and Pope John XIII approved the election two days later. The former archbishop of Dakar who had become bishop of Tulle six months earlier, left his diocese in Corrèze and moved to Paris, rue Lhomond, to the General House of the Spiritan Fathers. Assistant to the papal throne and member of the Preparatory Commission for Vatican Council II, his election as head of his congregation coincided with the opening of this assembly. All throughout the Council’s five sessions, he kept the members of his religious family updated on the debates, the texts adopted, and the decision made.

This study does not intend to present everything Archbishop Lefebvre said during the Council. Readers can find all his speeches in I Accuse the Council. The idea is rather to show how, over a period of six years, the situation became inextricably untenable. When he was elected in 1962, Archbishop Lefebvre inherited a delicate situation that can give readers an idea of the great difficulties involved in governing an institution that had fallen prey to the indecision and questioning of the period that followed World Wars.

A Headwind Mandate

Divisions and a harmful atmosphere were developing above all in France and particularly in Chevilly-Larue, the congregation’s main scholasticate. Authors with modern tendencies and experiments in self-management and self-formation were developing dangerously. Archbishop Lefebvre undertook to put an end to this. He demanded that the library containing the condemned works of Fr. Congar and Fr. Chenu be purged.

He transferred Fr. Fourmond, who was trying to eliminate apologetics and the treatise on the Blessed Virgin Mary from his theology class. In the spring of 1963, he sent precise directives to the superiors of the major scholasticates, ordering them “to remove all those imbued with Modernist ideas from teaching positions.” He exhorted them to show discernment in their choice of preachers for retreats and conferences, and authors for journals.

We must avoid everything that is likely to undermine respect for the Church and the Pope, and everything that minimizes the historical truth of the Scriptures, the value of Tradition, the fundamental notions of morality and sin, and personal responsibility. We must prevent the invasion of the spirit of the world in religious communities.

(Bp. Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Marcel Lefebvre: The Biography, Angelus Press, p. 345)

Archbishop Lefebvre renewed the teaching staff in the scholasticates, especially the deans of studies. In philosophy, he denounced the “great evils of our time, idealism and subjectivism. Thomistic philosophy alone gives us knowledge of the real.” In theology, he insisted upon “the importance of the Magisterium, and on Tradition and its relations with the ministry of sacraments and sacrifice”. He prescribed refectory readings of the main encyclicals and papal documents from Pius IX to the present, especially the acts of St. Pius X.

As for the liturgy, his orders were to follow the prescriptions from Rome, “avoid everything that comes from the personal initiatives of so-called liturgists”, keep the language of the Church, never fuse the para-liturgy with the liturgy, not to celebrate Mass facing the people, and not to receive Communion standing up.

The Reformation Turns into a Tornado

At the end of the year 1963, he insisted yet again on the very alarming situation in some of the Spiritan houses. Bishop Tissier de Mallerais describes the prelate’s appalling description:

Ruin of authority, unbridled freedom, the right to judge and criticize everything, the absence of humility. The loss of respect for colleagues, authority, and for themselves. The loss of modesty in dress, in looks, in reading and television. (…) Scorn for traditions, giving up Latin and Gregorian chant, and abandoning scholastic philosophy and theology.

Unfortunately, although Archbishop Lefebvre was lucid, he lacked decisive men capable of implementing the much-needed reforms. In Chevilly, he accepted the resignation of the rector and the replacement of three professors, but the new rector nominated in 1964 later admitted that he had betrayed his trust: “I pulled the wool over his eyes and used methods that were not to his liking. The students were my brothers, not my inferiors!” This attitude reveals an inability to practice “a truly fatherly authority that was both strong, capable of training priests, and able to withstand the craze for the new theology and for revolutionary teaching methods.” (Bp. Tissier, p. 348)

During the years of the Council, the direction Archbishop Lefebvre wished to give was more and more openly contested even within his congregation and under pressure from the other bishops, especially French bishops.

Coming tomorrow: The Impossible Aggiornamento

Tradition condemns them

The following  is taken from The Mass of All Time by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.  Let this speak for itself, that the innovations & “reforms” are against the will of God & detrimental to the Catholic Church.

A new rite already condemned by several Popes and Councils

It is a conception more Protestant than Catholic which expresses everything which has been unduly exalted and everything which has been diminished.

Contrary to the teachings of the 22nd session of the Council of Trent, contrary to the encyclical Mediator Dei of Pius XII, the role of the faithful in the participation of the Mass has been exaggerated, and the role of the priest has been belittled to that of a mere president.

It has exaggerated the place given to the liturgy of the Word and lessened the place given to the propitiatory Sacrifice. It has exalted the communal meal and secularized it, at the expense of respect for and faith in the Real Presence effected by transubstantiation.

In suppressing the sacred language, it has pluralized the rites ad infinitum, profaning them by incorporating worldly or pagan elements, and it has spread false translations at the expense of the true faith and genuine piety of the faithful.

And yet the Councils of Florence and Trent had both declared anathemas against all of these changes, while affirming that our Mass in its Canon dated back to Apostolic times.

The popes St. Pius V and Clement VIII insisted on the necessity of avoiding changes and transformation and of preserving perpetually this Roman Rite hallowed by Tradition.

The desacralization of the Mass and its secularization lead to the laicization of the priesthood, in the Protestant manner.

How can this reform of the Mass be reconciled with the canons of the Council of Trent and the condemnations in the Bull Auctorem Fidei of Pius VI?

3. “It is Tradition which condemns them, not me”

I do not set myself up as a judge; I am nothing, I am merely an echo of a Magisterium which is clear, which is evident, which is in all of the books, the papal encyclicals, council documents, basically in all of the theological books prior to the Council. What is being said now does not at all conform with the Magisterium which has been professed for two thousand years. Therefore it is the Tradition of the Church, her Magisterium which condemns them. Not me

1976 meeting between Pope Paul VI & Archbishop Lefebvre

The following is a never before released transcript of the conversation between Archbishop Lefebvre & Pope Paul VI on September 11, 1976, when the Archbishop boldly defended his stance, despite the strawmen & falsehood set up by the Pope. A highly recommended read.

https://fsspx.news/en/content/38774

The Introductory Indictment of Paul VI

The beginning of the meeting as reported by both sources, was a veritable indictment against the Society’s founder: “a storm”, the archbishop would later tell his seminarians, summing up the Pope’s reproaches: “You condemn me; I am a Modernist, a Protestant. It is intolerable! You are doing wicked work.”

Cardinal Benelli’s verbatim account reveals how strong these accusations were: “I hoped to find before me a brother, a son, a friend,” declared Paul VI. “Unfortunately,” he went on, “the position you have taken up is that of an anti-pope….It goes beyond all measure in its words, actions, and general attitude.” What is at stake here, continued the Holy Father:

…is not the person, it is the Pope, and you have judged the Pope to be unfaithful to the Faith of which he is the supreme guarantor. This may be the first time in history that this has happened. You have told the entire world that the Pope does not have the Faith, that he does not believe, that he is a Modernist, and so on! Of course, I myself must remain humble. But you, you have placed yourself in a terrible situation. You have accomplished extremely serious actions before the eyes of the world.

Archbishop Lefebvre’s Answer: A Bishop Torn by the Situation in the Church

Archbishop Lefebvre answered by admitting that, while some of his words or writings may have been inadequate, he never intended to attack the person of the Pope. But the real problem lay elsewhere: it was what had been happening in the Church since the Council. “The situation is such that we do not know what to do. With all these changes, either we risk losing the Faith, or we have to give the impression of disobeying.” The prelate added: “I would like to fall on my knees and accept everything, but I cannot go against my conscience.”

The French bishop explained his position:

It is not I who have created a movement, it is the faithful who are torn and do not accept certain situations. I am not the ‘leader of the traditionalists’. I am a bishop who, torn by what is happening, has tried to form priests as he did before the Council. I am behaving exactly as I did before the Council. I therefore cannot understand how I am all of a sudden condemned because I form priests in obedience to the healthy tradition of the Holy Church.

The Pope invited him to go on, which allowed Archbishop Lefebvre to explain:

Many priests and faithful believe that it is difficult to accept the tendencies that began after the ecumenical council Vatican II on the liturgy; religious freedom; the formation of priests; the relations between the Church and Catholic governments; the Church’s relations with Protestants. They do not understand how all these things that are being promoted can be in keeping with the healthy Tradition of the Church. I insist, I am not the only one who thinks this. Groups have formed, and they urge me not to abandon them…

No matter the disputes and calumnies, sometimes inflamed by the media, Archbishop Lefebvre always returned to the painful situation he was in, and that was only the consequence of the reforms undertaken in the name of Vatican II. And these were the very reforms Pope Paul VI demanded that he accept, as he had told his cardinals four months earlier. That was the heart of the matter.

For behind these reforms, it was the Faith that was at stake. The report from the September 11 audience explicitly mentions: “I do not know what to do,” explained the former archbishop of Tulle, distraught.

I seek to form priests according to the Faith and in the Faith. I suffer terribly at the sight of other seminaries; there are unimaginable situations. Religious faithful to their habits are condemned and despised by their bishop, while those who live a secular life and behave like people of the world are accepted.

Archbishop Lefebvre – Great Theologian

The following is a testimony from the private theologian of Archbishop Lefebvre, Fr. Victor-Alain Berto, demonstrating that Archbishop Lefebvre was a man of the Church, a great theologian & Doctor of the Church even. Perhaps the Modernists could take this into account before rashly judging his motives for disobeying the Counciliar Church.

I say this in the presence of God: I had the very great and undeserved honor of being his theologian. Sworn confidentiality prevents me from speaking about the work that I did under him, but I betray no secret by telling you that Archbishop Lefebvre is a theologian, and by far superior to his own theologian, and God grant that all the [Council] Fathers might be theologians to the same degree as he is! He has a perfectly sure and refined theological habitus, to which his very great devotion to the Holy See adds that connaturality that allows him, even before discursive thinking intervenes, to discern intuitively what is and what is not compatible with the prerogatives of the Rock of the Church.

He in no way resembles those [Council] Fathers who, as one of them had the gall to boast publicly, used to take from the hands of a peritus [expert], in the car that was bringing them to St. Peter’s, the ‘ready-made’ text of their intervention in aula [in the Council Hall]. Not once did I submit to him a memorandum, a note, or an outline, without him reviewing, recasting, rethinking and sometimes rewriting them from start to finish, by his own personal, diligent work. I did not ‘collaborate’ with him; if the word were English I would say that I really ‘sublaborated’ with him [i.e., worked under his supervision], in keeping with my status as a private theologian and his honor and dignity as a Father of an Ecumenical Council, a Judge and Doctor of the Faith together with the Roman Pontiff.” (January 3, 1964)

Through Mary, the Church will be restored

A timely reminder from the Archbishop that Our Lady, armed in battle array, will grant us the victory against heresy & Modernism.

Damsel of the Faith

Read here excerpts from a beautiful sermon given by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on August 22, 1987, wherein he speaks of the Blessed Virgin Mary and her role in this crisis, namely to restore the Catholic Faith in the hearts and homes of the world.

~Damsel of the Faith

What else can She wish but to see Her Divine Son reign over the whole earth, over souls, over families, and over societies, as He reigns in heaven? This is why She comes down to earth, to beg us, every one of us: “It is necessary for Jesus to reign over you.” She wishes it, She desires it, and She gives us the means.

They often tell us: do not rend the Church, do not divide the Church, do not cause a schism; yet, my dear brothers and sisters, tell me: where is the unity of the Church? What causes the unity…

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