The following is taken from The Recusant - Issue 63 Easter 2025:

Multiple options for Sacred Heart flags linked in this article:

Not necessarily a bona fide 'Question & Answer' article but the following, taken from The Recusant Easter 2025 issue, once again clarifies and expands on how to traditionally view the issue of Faith above the Sacraments:


Pages 32-40:

Quote:“...The gravest questions are always, always questions of doctrine! Just like for engineers, the gravest questions are not has he got a nice tie, has he got a sweet wife - you can have an S.O.B. of an engineer, but if he knows his business that’s the one you employ. […] The modern mind thinks ideas don’t matter, it’s only what’s practical that matters. And you’ve seen the same thing with Cardinal Castrillon. ‘Look, dear Society of St. Pius X, let’s not worry about doctrine, let’s just get together and be friends!’ *kiss* *kiss* *kiss* … ‘Eminence, We’ve got two religions which are fighting it out to the death.’ And of course that’s the truth of the matter. It’s doctrine. And we’ve to get down to the questions of doctrine. If I want to get to heaven, I’ve got to be filled with the truth, I need the truth, I’m not going to get to heaven without the truth. The rest doesn’t matter.” [Emphasis in the original]

(“The Original Tribute” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWoWispv08s)

Quote:“… One gets the impression that Faith as a supernatural gift merely empowers a person to believe what the Church teaches and the objects of Faith are provided by the Church. It is therefore the Church which justifies the Faith and not the Faith which justifies the Church. Hence the Church must be obeyed in all things, even if she is quite clearly hiding her light under a bushel. It automatically becomes right and proper that the light should be so shaded because legitimate authority in the Church has said so. I do not think that that is an unfair or distorted representation of the case, is it? But surely it is evident that such an argument is tautological or a vicious circle? I am to know what God has revealed by the authority of the Church. And how am I to know that the Church has such authority? Because the Church says that God has revealed it. It is patently nonsense. […] The Church is the guardian of God’s revelation but not its source. She herself is one of the objects of Faith: I believe in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.”

(Bryan Houghton, Mitre and Crook p.186 ff.)

Quote:“In a moment of terror, in a moment of confusion, in a moment of destruction of the Church, what should we do but hold fast to what Jesus has taught us and what His Church has taught us as being Truth forever, defined forever? One cannot change what has been defined once and for all by the Sovereign Pontiffs with their infallibility. It is not changeable. We cannot change the truth written forever in our holy books. Because this immutability of Truth corresponds to the Immutability of God. It is a communication of the Immutability of God to the immutability of our truths. To change our truths would be tantamount to changing the Immutability of God. We say it every day in the Office of None: “Immotus in Se permanens - God remaining immutable in Himself” forever. So we must attach ourselves to this truth which has been taught in a permanent way, and not let ourselves be troubled by the disorder we witness today. Consequently we must know, at some point, not to obey, in order to obey. This is it. Indeed, this Virtue of Almighty God of which I was speaking not long ago, the Good Lord has willed that it be transmitted to us somehow by men who participate in His authority.

That is why St. Paul himself says: “If an angel from heaven or I myself” - remember it is the great St. Paul himself who is speaking – “If an angel from heaven or I myself were to teach you a truth contrary to what has been taught to you originally, do not listen to us!” That is it. Today we are faced with this reality. I tell you myself, very willingly, my dear friends, I repeat these words very willingly: If it were to happen that I teach you something contrary to what the whole Tradition of the Church has taught, do not listen to me!”

(Archbishop Lefebvre, sermon of Dec. 8th 1976)

Quote: “I am simply a bishop of the Catholic Church who is continuing to transmit Catholic doctrine. I think, and this will certainly not be too far off, that you will be able to engrave on my tombstone these words of St. Paul: “Tradidi quod et accepi - I have transmitted to you what I have received,” nothing else. I am just the postman bringing you a letter. I did not write the letter, the message, this Word of God. God Himself wrote it; Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself gave it to us. As for us, we just handed it down, through these dear priests here present and through all those who have chosen to resist this wave of apostasy in the Church, by keeping the Eternal Faith and giving it to the faithful. […] It seems to me, my dear brethren, that I am hearing the voices of all these Popes - since Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Benedict XV, Pius XI, Pius XII - telling us: ‘Please, we beseech you, what are you going to do with our teachings, with our predications, with the Catholic Faith? Are you going to abandon it? Are you going to let it disappear from this earth? Please, please, continue to keep this treasure which we have given you.’ ”

(Abp. Lefebvre, consecrations sermon, 30th June, 1988)

Quote:“Since there was no other way for us to go, I am very happy that we are now assured of having bishops who keep Catholic Tradition and who maintain the Faith. Because it is the Faith that is at stake. It’s not a little matter. It’s not a matter of a few trifles.”

(Abp. Lefebvre, One Year after the Consecrations, July 1989)

Quote:“My presence here at this ceremony is a matter of conscience: it is the duty of a profession of the Catholic Faith before the entire Church... St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that there is no obligation to make a public profession of Faith in every circumstance, but when the Faith is in danger it is urgent to profess it, even at the risk of one’s life. This is the situation in which we find ourselves.”

(Bp. de Castro Mayer, 30th June 1988)

Quote:“ ‘You must change, come back to Tradition. It is not a question of the Liturgy, it is a question of the Faith.’
... Meanwhile the problem remains grave, very, very grave. We absolutely must not minimize it ... It is striking to see how our fight now is exactly the same fight as was being fought then by the great Catholics of the 19th century... We stand exactly where Cardinal Pie, Bishop Freppel, Louis Vueillot stood.”

(Abp. Lefebvre, 6th Sept 1990)

Quote:“The greatest misery, for a century or for a country, is to abandon or to diminish the truth. We can get over everything else; we never get over the sacrifice of principles. Characters may give in at given times and public morality receive some breach from vice or bad examples, but nothing is lost as long as the true doctrines remain standing in their integrity. With them everything is remade sooner or later, men and institutions, because we are always able to come back to the good when we have not left truth. To give up the principles, outside which nothing can be built that is strong and lasting would take away even the very hope of salvation. So the greatest service a man can render to his kinsmen, in the times when everything is failing and growing dim, is to assert the truth without fear even though no one listens to him; because it is a furrow of light which he opens through the intellects, and if his voice cannot manage to dominate the noises of the time, at least it will be received as the messenger of salvation in the future.”

(Mgr. Charles-Emile Freppel, Bishop of Angers)

Quote:“The imperative duty and the noble custom of holy Church is to pay homage especially to the truth when it is ignored, to profess it when it is threatened. There is a mediocre merit to claim to be its apostle and its supporter when all acknowledge and adhere to it. To make so much of the human state of the truth and to love it so little for itself that we deny it as soon as it is no longer popular, as soon as it does not have number, authority, preponderance, success: would that not be a new way of doing our duty, and of understanding honour? Let it be known: the good remains good, and must continue to be called as such, even when “nobody does it” (Ps. XIII, 3). Furthermore, a small number of persons putting forth claims is sufficient to save the integrity of the doctrines. And the integrity of doctrine is the only chance for the restoration of order in the world.”

(Cardinal Pie, Bishop of Poitiers)

Quote:“The battle is mainly a battle of doctrines. Your resistance, dear brothers, consists therefore in being firm in your minds against the seduction of false and misleading principles. […] When I ask the wise men of this era to identify the worst hardship of modern society, they reply unanimously that mankind is becoming weak and soft. This reply has even become cliché. However, we must go further, and ask the ultimate question. […] Where does this weakness come from? Isn’t it the natural and inevitable consequence of doctrinal weakness, weakness in belief, and, to be more exact, weakness in the Faith? After all, courage has no reason to exist if it isn’t at the service of a conviction.”  (Ibid.)

Quote:“Battles are won or lost at the level of principles. To wait until we see the consequences of false principles before we react, is to be too late. For at that point, the battle is already lost.”

Quote:“Why does the Church have this legislation? It is to help us in the practice of the First Commandment, which is that we have to profess the Catholic Faith.”

(Abp. Lefebvre, Easter 1986 sermon, Écône.)

Quote:“If the New Mass is valid but illicit, may I attend? No! The fact that it’s valid does not mean it’s ok to attend.”

(Transcribed from the audio available here.)

Quote:“However, even if we could be certain of the validity of the Novus Ordo Masses celebrated in today’s Conciliar churches, it does not follow that they are pleasing to God. … Furthermore, it is never permitted to knowingly and willingly participate in an evil or sinful thing, even if it is only venially sinful. For the end does not justify the means. Consequently, although it is a good thing to want to assist at Mass and satisfy one’s Sunday obligation, it is never permitted to use a sinful means to do this.”

(‘Questions and Answers with Fr Peter Scott’ - ‘Is the Novus Ordo Mass invalid, or sacrilegious, and should I assist at it when I have no alternative?’ archived here)

Quote: “I do not hesitate to strongly recommend against going to confession to such a priest, even when there is an assurance of a valid absolution. A penitent does not go to confession simply to receive the absolution of his sins. He has the desire to receive all the effects of the sacrament, including the direction, and if need be reprimand of the confessor, growth in the love of God and in sanctifying grace, a firmer purpose of amendment and the satisfaction of the temporal punishment due to his sins. All this is only possible if he sees in the confessor a judge, a teacher, and a physician. It is to guarantee these full effects of the sacrament of Penance that the Church supplies jurisdiction so that the faithful can ask any priest to hear their confessions, for any just reason (canon 2261, §2, 1917 Code and canon 1335 of the 1983 Code).

Manifestly it is not possible to have confidence in the guidance of a priest who compromises with modernism by celebrating the New Mass, even if he otherwise appears orthodox. Neither his judgment as to the reality of our contrition, nor his instruction as to the gravity of our sins, nor his remedies for the ills of our sins can be depended upon. [...] Our souls are much too precious to place in the hands of those who lack conviction. Consequently, outside case of danger of death, it is preferable to make an act of perfect contrition, and to wait until one can open one’s soul to a traditional priest that can be trusted.”

(Ibid.)

Quote:“Priest: What are you asking of God’s Church?

Sponsors: Faith.

Priest: What does the Faith hold out to you?

Sponsors: Everlasting life.

[Quid petis ab Ecclesia Dei?
- Fidem.

Fides, quid tibi praestat?
- Vitam aeternam.] ”

(Rituale Romanum: Baptism)]

• “Every one therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven.”
  - Matt. 10: 32-33
  
  
• “Certainly the question of the liturgy and the sacraments is very important, but it is not the most important. The most important is that of the Faith.”
  - Archbishop Lefebvre, Fideliter interview, Jan/Feb 1991
  
  
• “Today more than ever – and let it be understood rightly – society needs strong and consistent doctrines. Even though ideas are falling apart everywhere, asserting the truth can still be done in society, provided that this assertion of truth be firm, substantial, and without compromise. […] There is a grace attached to the full and entire confession of the Faith. This grace, according to Saint Paul, is the salvation of those who accomplish this confession; and experience shows that such a confession is also the salvation of those who witness it. Be Catholic and nothing other than Catholic.”
  - Dom Prosper Gueranger, The Christian Meaning of History
  
  
• “Matters have come to this pass: the people have left their houses of prayer and assembled in the deserts, a pitiable sight; women and children, old men, and men otherwise infirm, wretchedly faring in the open air, amid most profuse rains and snowstorms and winds and frosts of winter; and again in summer under a scorching sun. To this they submit because they will have no part of the wicked Arian leaven [i.e. the valid Mass said by Arian priests and bishops].”
  - St. Basil the Great; Epistulae 242, 376 AD
  
  
• “Certainly the question of the liturgy and the sacraments is very important, but it is not the most important. The most
  important is that of the Faith.”
  - Fideliter interview, Jan/Feb 1991
  
  
• “We understand quite well what troubles you may experience in the circumstances in which you are living, without a good Mass … In fact, in such a case Monseigneur Lefebvre recommends rather to stay at home and pray the rosary in the family and to read the old Mass in the missal…”
  - Reply to a personal letter to Archbishop Lefebvre, 27th April 1980 (see Recusant 40 p.10)
  
  
• “We are convinced of this, it is they who are wrong, who have changed course, who have broken with the Tradition of the Church, who have rushed into novelties, we are convinced of this. That is why we do not rejoin them and why we cannot work with them; we cannot collaborate with the people who depart from the spirit of the Church, from the Tradition of the Church.”
  - Archbishop Lefebvre, interview with Minute, 29th July 1976
  
  
• “I am not what you think I am. Many speak of me but few know me. I am not Freemasonry, nor rioting, nor the changing of the monarchy into a republic, not the substitution of one dynasty for another, not temporary disturbance of public order. I am not the shouts of Jacobins, nor the fury of the Montagne, nor the fighting on the barricades, nor pillage, nor arson, nor the agricultural law, nor the guillotine, nor the drownings. I am neither Marat nor Robespierre, nor Babeuf nor Mazzini nor Kossuth. These men are my sons but they are not me. These things are my works but they are not me. These men and these things are passing objects but I am a permanent state... I am the hatred of all order not established by man and in which he himself is not both king and god.”
  - Bishop Gaume, quoted by Abp. Lefebvre in An Open Letter to Confused Catholics, Ch.13