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| ‘We are not alone’: A 2020 recap by Archbishop Viganò |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-16-2020, 06:59 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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‘We are not alone’: A 2020 recap by Archbishop Viganò
The months that we leave behind represent one of the darkest moments in the history of humanity: for the first time ever, since the birth of the Savior, the Holy Keys have been used to close churches and restrict the celebration of the Mass and the Sacraments, almost in anticipation of the abolition of the daily Sacrifice prophesied by Daniel, which will take place during the reign of the Antichrist.
December 15, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – The following reflection by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is available in Italian HERE.
NOLITE TIMERE - a Meditation in expectation of the birth of the Most Holy Redeemer
Sleep, O Celestial Child:
The nations do not know
Who has been born;
But the day will come
When they shall be
Your noble heritage;
You who sleep so humbly,
You who are hidden in dust:
They will know You as King.
- Manzoni, Il Natale
In less than two weeks, by the grace of God, this year of Our Lord 2020, which has been marked by terrible events and great social upheavals, will draw to a close. Allow me to formulate a brief reflection with which to turn a supernatural gaze both towards the recent past as well as the immediate future.
The months that we leave behind represent one of the darkest moments in the history of humanity: for the first time ever, since the birth of the Savior, the Holy Keys have been used to close churches and restrict the celebration of the Mass and the Sacraments, almost in anticipation of the abolition of the daily Sacrifice prophesied by Daniel, which will take place during the reign of the Antichrist. For the first time ever, at the Easter celebration of the Lord’s Resurrection, many of us were forced to assist at Mass and Holy Week services through the internet, depriving us of Holy Communion. For the first time, we became aware, with pain and dismay, of being deserted by our bishops and parish priests, who were barricaded in their palaces and rectories out of fear of a seasonal flu that claimed about the same number of victims as in other years.
We have seen – so to speak – the generals and officers abandon their army, and in some cases they even joined the enemy ranks, imposing on the Church an unconditional surrender to the absurd reasons for the pseudo-pandemic. Never, down all the centuries, has so much faint-heartedness, so much cowardice, so much desire to pander to our persecutors found such fertile ground in those who ought to be our guides and leaders. And what most scandalized many of us was the realization that this betrayal involved the highest levels of the Hierarchy of the Church much more than the priests and the simple faithful. Precisely from the highest Throne, from which we should have expected a firm and authoritative intervention in defense of the rights of God, of the freedom of the Church and the salvation of souls, we have received instead invitations to obey unjust laws, illegitimate norms, and irrational orders. And in the words that the media promptly spread from Santa Marta, we recognized many, too many, nods to the insider language of the globalist élite – fraternity, universal income, new world order, build back better, great reset, nothing will be ever be the same again, resilience – all words of the new language, which testify to the idem sentire of those who speak them and those who listen to them.
It was a true act of intimidation, a thinly-veiled threat, with which our Pastors ratified the pandemic alarm, sowed terror among the simple, and abandoned the dying and the needy. In the height of a cynical legalism, it even reached the point of prohibiting priests from hearing Confessions and administering the Last Sacraments to those were abandoned in intensive care, depriving our beloved dead of religious burial, and denying the Blessed Sacrament to many souls.
And if on the religious side of things we saw ourselves treated as outsiders and barred access to our churches like the Saracens of old – even as the implacable invasion of illegal immigrants continued to replenish the coffers of the self-styled humanitarian associations – on the civil and political side we discovered that our rulers had a vocation to tyranny: using a rhetoric now disproven by reality, they wanted to make us think of them as representatives of the sovereign people. By heads of state and prime ministers, by regional governors and local mayors, the fullest rigors of the law were imposed on us as if we were rebellious subjects, suspects to be placed under surveillance even in the privacy of our own homes, criminals to be chased even in the solitude of the woods or along the seashore. We have seen people forcibly dragged by soldiers in anti-riot gear, elderly people fined while they were going to the pharmacy, shopkeepers forced to close their doors, and restaurants that first took costly measures in an effort to comply with the government’s demands only to then to be ordered to be closed.
With bewilderment, we have heard scores of self-styled experts – most of whom are lacking any scientific authority whatsoever and largely in grave conflict of interest due to their ties to pharmaceutical companies and supra-national organizations – pontificating on television programs and on the pages of newspapers about infections, vaccines, immunity, positive tests, the obligation to wear masks, the risks for the elderly, the contagiousness of the asymptomatic, and the danger of seeing one’s family. They have thundered at us, using arcane words like “social distancing” and “gatherings,” in an endless series of grotesque contradictions, absurd alarms, apocalyptic threats, social precepts and health ceremonies that have replaced religious rites. And as they have terrorized the population – all while being paid lavishly for their pronouncements made at every hour of the day – our rulers and politicians have flaunted their masks in front of all the television cameras, only to then take them off as soon as possible.
Forced to disguise ourselves as anonymous people without a face, they have imposed a muzzle on us that is absolutely useless for avoiding contagion and actually harmful to our health, but indispensable for their purposes of making us feel subjugated and forced to conform. They have prevented us from being cured with existing and effective treatments, promoting instead a vaccine that they now want to make obligatory even before knowing if it is effective, after only incomplete testing. And in order not to jeopardize the enormous profits of the pharmaceutical companies, they have granted immunity for the damage that their vaccines may cause to the population. The vaccine is free, they tell us, but it will actually be paid for with taxpayers’ money, even if its producers do not guarantee that it will protect from contagion.
In this scenario that is similar to the disastrous effects of a war, the economy of our countries lies prostrate, while online commerce companies, home delivery companies, and pornography producers are booming. The local shops close but the large shopping centers and supermarkets remain open: monuments to the consumerism in which everyone, even those with Covid, continue to fill their carts with foreign products, German cheeses, Moroccan oranges, Canadian flour, and cell phones and televisions made in China.
“The world is preparing for the Great Reset,” they tell us obsessively. “Nothing will ever be the same again.” We will have to get used to “living with the virus,” subjected to a perpetual pandemic that feeds the pharmaceutical Moloch and legitimizes ever more hateful limitations of our fundamental liberties. Those who since childhood have catechized us to worship freedom, democracy, and popular sovereignty today govern us by depriving us of freedom in the name of health, imposing dictatorship, arrogating to themselves a power that no one has ever conferred on them, neither from above nor from below. And the temporal power that Freemasonry and the Liberals ferociously opposed in the Roman Pontiffs is today claimed by them in reverse, in an attempt to submit the Church of Christ to the power of the State with the approval and collaboration of the highest levels of the Hierarchy.
Out of this whole humanly discouraging scenario, an unavoidable fact emerges: there is a chasm between those who hold authority and those who are subjected to it, between rulers and citizens, between the Hierarchy and the faithful. It is an institutional monstrum in which both civil and religious power are almost entirely in the hands of unscrupulous people who have been appointed because of their absolute ineptitude and great vulnerability to blackmail. Their role is not to administer the institution but to demolish it, not to respect its laws but to violate them, not to protect its members but to disperse and distance them. In short, we find ourselves facing the perversion of authority, not due to chance or inexperience but pursued with determination and following a pre-established plan: a single script under a single direction.
We thus have rulers who persecute their citizens and treat them as enemies, while welcoming and financing the invasion of criminals and illegal immigrants; law enforcement officers and judges who arrest and fine those who violate social-distancing rules, even as they ostentatiously ignore criminals, rapists, assassins and treacherous politicians; teachers who do not transmit culture or the love of knowledge but instead indoctrinate students into gender and globalist ideology; doctors who refuse to treat the sick but impose a genetically-modified vaccine whose efficacy and potential side-effects are unknown; bishops and priests who deny the faithful the Sacraments but who never miss an occasion for propagandizing their own unconditional adherence to the globalist agenda in the name of Masonic Brotherhood.
Those who oppose this overturning of every principle of civil life find themselves abandoned, alone, and without a leader who would unite them. Loneliness, in fact, allows our common enemies – as they have amply demonstrated themselves to be – to instill fear, despair, and the feeling of not being able to stand together to resist the assaults to which we have been subjected. Citizens are alone in the face of the abuse of civil power, the faithful are alone in the face of the arrogance of heretical Prelates given over to vice, and those who wish to dissent, raise their voice, or protest within institutions are likewise alone.
Loneliness and fear increase when we give them ground to stand on, but they vanish if we think of how each one of us merited that the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity became incarnate in the most pure womb of the Virgin Mary: qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de coelis. And here we come to the Mysteries which we are preparing to contemplate in these coming days: the Immaculate Conception and the Lord’s Holy Nativity. From these mysteries, dear friends, we can draw renewed hope with which to face the events that await us.
Above all, we must remember that none of us is ever truly alone: we have the Lord at our side. He always wants our good, and so he never fails to send us His help and His grace, if only we ask for it with faith. We have the Most Blessed Virgin at our side, our loving Mother and our secure refuge. We have near us the hosts of Angels and the multitude of Saints who from the glory of Heaven intercede for us before the Throne of the Divine Majesty.
The contemplation of this sublime community that is the Holy Church, the mystical Jerusalem that we are citizens of and living members, should persuade us that the last thing we ought to fear is being alone, and that there is no reason to be afraid, even if the devil rages to make us believe that there is. True loneliness is in Hell, where the damned souls do not have any hope: that is the loneliness we should truly fear, and before it we must beg for the grace of final perseverance, that is, to be able to merit the grace of a holy death from the Mercy of God. A death for which we ought to always be prepared by keeping ourselves in a state of grace, in friendship with the Lord.
Of course, the trials that we are facing in this moment are tremendous, because they give us the feeling that evil is triumphing, that each of us is abandoned to ourselves, that the wicked have managed to get the better of the pusillus grex [little flock] and of all humanity. But was not our Lord perhaps alone in Gethsemane, alone on the wood of the Cross, alone in the Tomb? And returning to the mystery of Christmas that is now fast approaching: were not the Blessed Mother and Saint Joseph perhaps alone when they found themselves forced to take refuge in a stable because non erat locus illis in diversorio [there was no room for them in the inn]? Imagine how the putative father of Jesus must have felt seeing his Most Holy Spouse ready to give birth in the cold of the night of Palestine; think of their worries during the Flight into Egypt, knowing that King Herod had unleashed his soldiers to kill the Infant Jesus. Even in these terrible situations, the solitude of the Holy Family was only apparent, while God arranged everything according to His plans. He sent an Angel to announce the birth of the Savior to the shepherds.
He moved no less than a Star to call the Magi from the Orient to adore the Messiah. He sent choirs of His Angels to sing over the cave of Bethlehem. He warned Saint Joseph to flee in order to escape the massacre of Herod.
Also to us, in the solitude of the lockdown which many of us are forced to endure, in the abandonment of the hospital, in the silence of the deserted streets and the churches closed to worship, the Lord comes to bring his company. Also to us He sends His Angel to inspire us with holy purposes, his Most Holy Mother to console us, the Paraclete to give us comfort, dulcis hospes animae.
We are not alone: we are never alone. And it is this, in the end, that the authors of the Great Reset fear most: that we become aware of this supernatural – but no less true – reality that makes the house of cards of their infernal deceptions collapse.
If we think of how we have at our side She who crushes the head of the Serpent, or the Archangel who has drawn his sword to drive Lucifer into the abyss; if we recall that our Guardian Angel, our Patron Saint, and our dear ones in Heaven and Purgatory are with us: what can we ever be afraid of? Do we want to believe that the God of armies drawn up for battle has any hesitation about defeating any servant of the eternally defeated one?
She who in the year 630 saved Constantinople from siege, terrorizing the Avars and Persians by appearing tremendous in the heavens; who in 1091 at Scicli in Sicily was invoked as Our Lady of the Militia and appeared on a shining cloud chasing away the Saracens; who in 1571 at Lepanto and again in 1683 at Vienna was invoked as Queen of Victories and granted victory to the Christian army against the Turks; who during the anti-Catholic persecution of Mexico protected the Cristeros and repelled the army of the Mason Elias Calles – She will not deny us Her holy assistance; She will not leave us alone in the battle; She will not abandon those who have recourse to Her with trusting prayer in the moment in which the conflict is decisive and the confrontation is nearing an end.
We have had the grace to understand what this world can become if we deny the Lordship of God and replace it with the tyranny of Satan. This is the world that is rebellious against Christ the King and Mary the Queen, in which each day thousands of innocent lives in the wombs of their mothers are sacrificed to Satan; this is the world in which vice and sin want to cancel every trace of good and virtue, every memory of the Christian religion, every law and vestige of our civilization, every trace of the order that the Creator has given to nature. A world in which churches burn, Crosses are knocked down, statues of the Virgin are decapitated: this hatred, this Satanic fury against Christ and the Mother of God is the mark of the Evil One and his servants. In the face of this total Revolution, this accursed New World Order that would prepare the way for the kingdom of the Antichrist, we cannot still believe that any brotherhood is possible if not under the Law of God, nor that it is possible to construct peace if not under the mantle of the Queen of Peace. Pax Christi in regno Christi.
The Lord will give us the victory only when we bow down to Him as our King. And if we cannot yet proclaim Him as King of our Nations because of the impiety of those who govern us, we can nevertheless consecrate ourselves, our families, and our communities to Him. And to those who dare to challenge Heaven in the name of “Nothing will be the same again,” we respond by invoking God with renewed fervor: “As it was in beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.”
Let us pray to the Immaculate Virgin, Tabernacle of the Most High, asking that in our meditation on the Holy Nativity of Her Divine Son which now draws near, She may dispel our fear and solitude, gathering us together in adoration around the manger. In the poverty of the crib, in the silence of the cave of Bethlehem, the song of the Angels resounds; the one true Light of the world shines forth, adored by the shepherds and the Magi, and Creation itself bows down, adorning the vault of heaven with a shining Star. Veni, Emmanuel: captivum solve Israël. Come, O Emmanuel, free your imprisoned people.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
13 December 2020
Dominica Gaudete, III Adventus
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| December 16th - St. Eusebius of Vercelli |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 12-16-2020, 12:42 AM - Forum: December
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Saint Eusebius of Vercelli
Bishop
(† 370)
Saint Eusebius was born of a noble family on the island of Sardinia, where his father is said to have died in prison for the Faith. He was brought up in Rome in the practice of piety, and studied in Vercelli, a city of Piedmont. Eusebius was ordained a priest there, and served the Church of Vercelli with such zeal that when the episcopal chair became vacant he was unanimously chosen, by both clergy and people, to fill it.
The holy bishop saw that the best and principal means to labor effectually for the edification and sanctification of his people was to have a zealous clergy. Saint Ambrose assures us that he was the first bishop who in the West united the monastic life with the clerical, living and having his clergy live almost like the monks of the East in the deserts. They shared a common life of prayer and penance, in a single residence, that of the bishop, as did the clergy of Saint Augustine in his African see. Saint Eusebius was very careful to instruct his flock in the maxims of the Gospel. The force of the truth which he preached, together with his example, brought many sinners to a change of life.
When a Council was held in Italy, under the influence of the Emperor Constans and the Arian heretics, with the intention of condemning Saint Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, Saint Eusebius courageously resisted the heretics. He attempted to have all present sign the Nicene Creed, but the paper was torn out of his hands and his pen was broken. With Saint Dionysus of Milan, he refused to sign the condemnation of the bishop of Alexandria. The Emperor therefore had him banished to Scythopolis in Palestine with Saint Dionysus of Milan, then to Cappadocia, where Saint Dionysus died; and finally he was taken to the Upper Thebaid in Egypt, where he suffered grievously. The Arians of these places loaded him with outrages and treated him cruelly, and Saint Eusebius confounded them wherever they were.
At the death of Constans in 361, he was permitted to return to his diocese, where he continued to combat Arianism, concertedly with Saint Hilarion of Poitiers. He has been called a martyr in two panegyrics appended to the works of Saint Ambrose. Two of his letters, written from his dungeons, are still extant, the only ones of his writings which have survived. One is addressed to his church, the other to the bishop of Elvira to encourage him to oppose a fallen heretic and not fear the power of princes. He died in about the year 370. His relics are in a shrine in the Cathedral of Vercelli.
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| Archbishop Lefebvre: 1972 - On the New Sacraments |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-15-2020, 11:24 AM - Forum: Sermons and Conferences
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A Bishop Speaks to Us
August 1972
My dear Friends,
You have asked me to speak to you of the priest. Since we have already discussed the subject at length in the course of today, all the wise counsels, all the sound principles then set before us have clearly been a source of edification and encouragement. All I can do is confirm them.
I should like to stress, not perhaps all the points raised during the day–I should merely be repetitious–but the matter treated in our discussions and conversations from the beginning, since it seems to me of capital importance for the understanding of the situation today. Indeed, it seems to be impossible to explain the situation in which we find ourselves without tracing it back to the Council.
I am reverting to it because it seems to be indispensable to read and study carefully all the schemata of the Council in order to disclose the doors which it opened to modernism, as Fr. Simon said so well. I shall stress the fact that the Council steadily refused to give exact definitions of the matters under discussion. It is this rejection of definitions, this refusal to examine philosophically and theologically the questions under discussion, which meant that we could do no more than describe them, not define them. Not only were they not defined, but very often in the course of discussions on the subjects, the traditional definition was falsified. I believe that is why we are now confronted with a whole system that we cannot manage to grasp, and can keep in check only with difficulty because the traditional definitions, the true definitions, are no longer accepted.
Take, as an example, the question of marriage. Marriage was always traditionally defined by the first end of marriage, which was procreation, and by the secondary end, which was conjugal love. Well, at the Council, there was an expressed desire to change that definition and state that there was no longer a primary end, but that the two ends of procreational and conjugal love were equivalent. It was Cardinal Suenens who launched this attack on the very purpose of marriage, and I still remember how Cardinal Browne, Master General of the Dominicans, rose to cry “Caveatis! Caveatis! Beware! Beware!” He declared vehemently:
Quote:“If we accept this definition we are running contrary to the whole tradition of the Church, and we are about to pervert the meaning of marriage. We have no right to go against the traditional definitions of the Church.”
And he gave many examples.
So great was the emotion aroused in the assembly that Cardinal Suenens was asked, I believe by the Holy Father, to make some slight alteration in the terms he had used, or even to change them all together. That is only one example, but you can see that now everything said on the question of marriage ties up with the false conception expressed by Cardinal Suenens, that conjugal love, now called quite simply and far more crudely “sexuality,” is henceforth an end of marriage, not procreation only. The result–in the name of sexuality all acts are permissible: contraception, birth control, the use of marriage with all that can hinder birth, and, ultimately, abortion. So it goes on.
One bad definition, then, and we are plunged into confusion, or lack of definition. We have asked repeatedly for a definition of collegiality; none has yet succeeded in defining it. We have asked repeatedly for a definition of ecumenism; we are told, through the mouths of the commission secretaries and rapporteurs themselves:
Quote:“But we are not holding a dogmatic Council, we are not making philosophical definitions. This is a pastoral Council aimed at the world as a whole. Consequently, it is pointless to frame here definitions which would not be understood.”
But it is surely the height of stupidity to think that we can meet and yet fail to define the very terms we are discussing.
The definition of the Church has been equally falsified–even of the Church! There was an unwillingness to name the Church as the necessary means of salvation. Thus, insensibly, in the wording of the texts, the Church was no longer a necessary means, but a useful means, useful merely. Christians ought to penetrate the mass of humanity, which is, itself in its entirety, moving towards its salvation, and Christians should bring to it an additional element of union, of charity, etc. And that is all. It is to destroy the whole missionary spirit of the Church at its roots.
It is thus that the schema on missions has been literally undermined by the idea. Today we see many missionaries who have come back from their missions loath to return to them. In refresher courses, sessions, and reunions they have been fobbed off with twaddle. French delegates told them:
Quote:“Above all, beware of proselytizing. You should realize that there is considerable worth in all the religions you encounter; missionaries should concern themselves only with the development of these countries and, as a result, with social progress”
–no longer with true evangelization and sanctification. Those missionaries had gone overseas to preach the Gospel and save souls, saying to themselves, Some souls will be saved because I went on a mission. We have always been taught that souls in original sin and all the personal sins that follow were in great danger of failing to find salvation, and that we must therefore do everything in our power to go and bring them the Gospel. That is no longer true! If I had the text here, the first text of the schema which treats of the Church in the world, Gaudium et Spes, I would read it to you so that you might gather what there is in the other schemata on the same subject.
The first schema is inadmissible. It is there explicitly stated that all humanity is on the way to its final end–to its happiness. There is no allusion to original sin, no allusion to baptism, no allusion to the sacraments. Indeed, it is an utterly new conception of the Church. Here too, the Church is nothing but a useful means. The faithful are repeatedly reprimanded since Christians must not think themselves better than others or believe that they alone have the whole truth. Christians should make themselves useful to humanity but should not believe that they, and they alone, are the way of salvation.
That was the spirit which went to the making of Gaudium et Spes. It begins with a long description of the changes which have taken place in humanity. It is a postulate constantly repeated to justify all the changes now proposed to us: the world evolves, everything evolves, times change, humanity changes. Humanity progresses, it is in a state of continual progress. For the compilers, the consequences follow of themselves. We can no longer think of religion as it was conceived in the past. We can no longer conceive the relations of the Catholic religion with other religions in the same way as in the past. We must therefore develop a wholly different conception of our religion. I assure you that it would be useful to republish these schemata to discover the wrong spirit which inspired its editors.
There is another subject which should normally have been defined with great precision–episcopal assemblies. What is an episcopal assembly? What does it represent? What are its powers? What, then, is the purpose of an episcopal assembly? Well, no-one has ever succeeded in defining an episcopal assembly. The Pope himself has said that it will emerge, in the process of time, in practice, how the powers of episcopal assemblies can be defined and delimited. There was a rush into action and practice without having a definition, without knowing where one was going. The gravity of such a step was incalculable. It is obvious that the bigger these episcopal assemblies are, and the greater their rights, the more the bishops are reduced to nonentities. Thus, the episcopate, the true framework of our Lord’s Church, disappears with these episcopal assemblies.
It is happening today. There is still an absence of definitions. In May of last year I went to see a cardinal and explained to him what I was doing. I described the seminary, with its spirituality directed above all towards the deepening of the theology of the sacrifice of the Mass and towards liturgical prayer.
He said to me:
Quote:“But, Your Excellency, that is the exact contrary of what our young priests want today. Today the priest is defined in terms of evangelization, not in those of sanctification or the holy sacrifice of the Mass.”
I replied:
Quote:“What evangelization? Unless it bears a fundamental and essential relation to the holy sacrifice of the Mass, what is the meaning of that evangelization? Political? Social? Humanitarian? On what will the evangelization dwell?”
Yes, but that is how things stand today. It is evangelization which predominates, no longer sanctification So, yet another bad definition of the priest, and so long as the true definition is no longer given, all the consequences must be borne.
The same is true of all the sacraments. Consider all the sacraments one after the other; they are no longer defined as in the past. Baptism is no longer redemption from original sin, but simply the sacrament that unites you to God, or rather makes you belong to the community. There is no longer mention of the remission of original sin. Marriage has already been discussed. The Mass is now defined as the Lord’s Supper, as an assembly, no longer as the true sacrifice of the Mass. The consequences flowing from that are all too obvious. Extreme Unction is no longer the sacrament of the infirm, the sacrament of the sick; it is now the sacrament of the old. It is no longer the sacrament which prepares for our last moment, which wipes away sins before death and is a true preparation for our final union with God.
And the sacrament of Penance? Now, with the new decree, I sincerely believe that the very definition of the sacrament of Penance is affected, because one cannot make the exception into the rule. What was an exception was general absolution given in the case of shipwreck or war–an absolution, moreover, the validity of which is debated by the authors.One comes up against the definition and very essence of the sacrament of Penance, which is a judicial act, a judgment. No judgment is possible where no case has been heard. Every man’s case must be heard if it is to be judged for the remission or retention of sins. As I see it, this practice will end by destroying the very essence of the sacrament of Penance, and it is a practice which will certainly spread rapidly. Confessors will find it far easier to say to the people waiting outside the confessional, “Listen, I haven’t time to hear your confession. You realize that I am now authorized to give you general absolution. I give you general absolution.” In principle, one should confess grave sins if there are any; but psychologically, one need no longer confess mortal sins if such exist, that is absurd; people will not go afterwards to confession and show themselves to the others as having grave sins. Then those who have already been to Holy Communion after receiving absolution will say, “I cannot see why I should go to confession since I have already received Communion.” It is grave indeed. We are on the way to the abolition of the Sacrament of Penance.
I sincerely believe that it is the Council which is at the back of all this since many of the bishops, above all those chosen to be members of the commissions, were people who had studied an existentialist philosophy but had never studied Thomist philosophy and so do not know what a definition is. For them, there is no such thing as essence; nothing is defined any longer; one expresses or describes something, but never defines it. Moreover, this lack of philosophy was patent throughout the whole Council. I believe this to be the reason why the Council was a mass of ambiguities, vagueness, and sentimentality, things which now clearly admit all interpretations and have left all doors open.
But we should return to the Mass, which most closely concerns priests. The Mass, as the Council of Trent so well expressed it, is the heart of the Church. An attack on the Mass is an attack on the Church as a whole and, by that very fact, on the priest. The priest is the person who is ultimately most affected by all these reforms, for he is at the heart of the Church with the duty of spreading the faith and the holiness of the Church. He is the true responsible minister by virtue of his sacerdotal character. The Church is essentially sacerdotal. Thus, when anything in the Church is touched, the priest suffers the consequences. That is why the priest is today in the most tragic of situations, the most dramatic imaginable. Seminaries are non-existent, since the definition of the priest and the true concept of the priesthood have been abandoned.
I admit that I find myself incapable, truly incapable, of founding a seminary with the new Mass. Since the priest is defined precisely by the sacrifice, the priest cannot be defined without reference to sacrifice, nor can one define sacrifice without reference to the priest. They are ideas indissolubly linked by their very essence.It follows that where there is no longer a sacrifice there can no longer be a priest. I do not see how one can make priests if there is no longer sacrifice. And, for example, there is no longer a sacrifice if there is no longer a victim, and there is no longer a victim if there is no longer a Real Presence and no longer transubstantiation.
Thus, where there is no victim there is no sacrifice. What, then, is there to hold the priest or seminarian? I would say, what is it that makes his fervor, his piety? What gives him his very reason for being in the seminary? It is the Sacrifice of the Mass. I think it was true of all of us during our seminary days that our happiness, our joy, was to look forward to the tonsure, to minor orders, to going to the altar, to becoming a subdeacon, deacon, and, at last, a priest. To be able at last to offer the divine Victim! To be able at last to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass! As seminarians, that was our whole life.
Now doubt is cast on the Real Presence, doubt is cast on the Sacrifice of the Mass: it is a supper, it is a meal, it is a presence–the Lord is present as when we are together. But that is not the Presence of our Lord in the Eucharist; it is the Presence of the Victim, the same Victim as on the Cross. That explains why there are seminarians, why there are vocations; it is worth while to be a priest to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass, the true Sacrifice of the Mass.
It is not worth while being a priest to bring together an assembly where the laity may all but concelebrate, where the laity may do all things. Nothing is left in this new conception of the Mass, a Protestant conception leading us to Protestantism. That is why I cannot see how one can make a seminary with this new Mass. It can neither hold seminarians nor raise up vocations. There, it seems to me, lies the fundamental reason why there are no more vocations–there is no more Sacrifice of the Mass. Without the sacrifice there is no priest; the priest cannot be defined save by the Sacrament. There are no other grounds. Until the true Sacrifice of the Mass is re-established in all its divine reality there will be no more seminaries and no more seminarians.
You will tell me, “But there are other rites.” Certainly, there are other rites–Coptic, Maronite, Slav, take your choice; but in all these Catholic rites you will find the concepts of sacrifice, of the Real Presence, and of the sacerdotal character. Some rites, of course, might have been changed, but by laying yet more stress on the three or four fundamental notions of the Mass. So be it. Let there be a change for the better, a yet greater and stronger affirmation of these fundamental truths; agreed. But there must be no watering down, no doing away with them. It cannot be done.
Lately, it was well said, and I wholeheartedly agree, that concelebration goes counter to the very purpose of the Mass.
The priest, himself, individually, has been consecrated as a priest to offer the sacrifice of the Mass, his sacrifice, the sacrifice for which he himself, not an assembly, has been given the sacerdotal character. It is he himself who has been consecrated. There was no massive and global consecration of all priests. Each has severally been truly and personally consecrated, and they have received a character not given to the assembly. It is a sacrament received personally, hence the priest is made to offer the holy sacrifice of the Mass individually.
There is, therefore, no doubt that concelebration has not the worth of the totality of Masses which would be celebrated individually. It is not possible. There is but one transubstantiation, consequently there is but one Sacrifice of the Mass. Why multiply the Sacrifices of the Mass if one transubstantiation alone has the worth of all the Sacrifices of the Mass? In that case, there should never have been more than one Mass in the world after our Lord’s, did it still serve a purpose. The multiplication of Masses is useless if the priests who concelebrate perform an act which is equivalent to ten distinct Masses. It is false, utterly false. Why should we say three Masses at Christmas and on All Saints’ Day? It would be an absurd practice.
The Church rightly requires that multiplication of the sacrifice of the Mass, both for the application of the sacrifice of the cross and for all the ends of the Mass–adoration, the act of thanksgiving, propitiation, and entreaty. All these new practices show a lack of theology and a lack of the definition of things.
From this point of view I am grateful to Fr. Deen for having written his little work on the celibacy of the clergy, stating that celibacy was practised from the earliest times, for it is untrue to say that celibacy was required after a certain number of centuries. There, too, I believe there to be a lack of theological reasoning. Celibacy is not demanded of the priest solely to facilitate his apostolate and make him more available to his people; it is a supererogatory reason, but not the true cause.
I think the priest should be compared with the Blessed Virgin Mary. Why is the Blessed Virgin Mary a virgin? By reason of her divine motherhood, because she is the Mother of our Lord. She has thus been so closely united with the Word of God, with God Himself, that it was meet that she should be a virgin. Well, fundamentally the priest likewise re-enacts what the Virgin Mary was called upon to do. The Virgin Mary brought our Lord down to the earth, in her womb, by her Fiat. The priest, by his own words, brings our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. Hence it is fitting that the priest should be a virgin because of his intimate relation to our Lord, through which he has power over the physical body of our Lord, over His divinity, over the whole Person of our Lord. The priest is so close to Him, has such power over Him, that he ought properly to be a virgin. If any exceptions are made, it is by the tolerance of the Church. In the Near East for instance–if one knows them really well and talks to priests of the Eastern Church, they are always exceptions. Married priests may not be appointed to important posts in the dioceses. Bishops may not be married. It is therefore a question of sufferance, pure sufferance.
But it is fitting and, I should say, in some ways and to some extent, that the priest should be a virgin, since it is he who speaks the words of Consecration. Therein lies the mystery, the great mystery of the priest, at once his greatness and his humility. Before the Sovereign Priest, the Supreme Pontiff, who is our Lord, Jesus Christ, the priest is nothing. It is Christ who is the Priest, He who is the Victim, He who offers Himself anew. The priest, of course, is only His minister and should therefore humble himself before our Lord, but it is nevertheless that which makes his greatness, the greatness of the priesthood. We should always meditate on this. We shall never succeed in reaching the depths of the great mystery of the Mass.
It is therein that the Mystery of Faith lies. It is indeed that, not the mystery of Jesus, which comes with the end of the world. It is wrong to contemplate the coming of our Lord at the end of time when the great mystery of our faith has just taken place. How could such an idea arise? The words “Mystery of Faith” have been introduced simply to stress the mystery accomplished in the words of the Consecration.
You have asked me to suggest subjects for your meditation, I should say for your sanctification. If one there be, it is indeed our resemblance to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Blessed Virgin Mary is not a priest, but she is the Mother of the priest, as near as possible to the priest. No greater resemblance is possible nor any closer union between the Mother of God and the priest, since both bring our Lord Jesus Christ to earth, both give our Lord Jesus Christ to the world and for that reason are virgin. In that, I think, there is a subject for meditation that can help us in all our difficulties and conflicts. It is strictly necessary that our sacrifice of the Mass be a true sacrifice in order that we may keep our priestly holiness. In the same measure as our sacrifice of the Mass vanishes, in just that measure we lose the source of our sacerdotal holiness.
The present problem of the Mass is one extremely serious for the Church. I believe that if today our dioceses, our seminaries, and our religious activities are stricken with sterility, it is because our recent deviations have brought down upon us the curse of God. All the endeavors to recapture what is being lost, to reorganize, reconstruct, and rebuild, have been stricken with sterility since we no longer have the true source of holiness, which is the holy sacrifice of the Mass. Now that it has been profaned it no longer gives or channels grace. How many priests do we see today who no longer celebrate the Mass when they cannot concelebrate, or when there are none present to form a congregation. They no longer celebrate Mass alone. This happens very often, even in our religious orders.
Think, too, of all the sacrileges now committed through this scorn of the Real Presence of our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. Yet it was the Council of Trent that declared that our Lord was present in the smallest particles of the Eucharist. Think, then, of the lack of respect in those who can take particles of the Eucharist into their hands and return to their places without purifying their hands! When there are few Communions and a Communion plate is used, some fragments are always left on the plate. As a result, these fragments remain in the hands of the faithful–that constitutes contempt for the presence of our Lord, which is sacrilege. St. Thomas numbers among his examples of sacrilege the taking of the Eucharist in their hands by the laity.
No doubt that is now authorized, but the ecclesiastical regulation forbidding it was so important that faith in it has certainly been shaken in many Catholics and even in children. How can children still believe in the Real Presence? How can they still have any respect for the priest when the priest no longer respects himself? How can they have a proper conception of the sacrifice of the Mass when there is no longer even a crucifix on the altars? It has clearly lost its meaning.
Now I will say nothing more. I do not want to trespass on your patience. Besides, I believe that over and above the desire to keep our Holy Mass intact, we must wish to keep our breviary. Its definition also has been changed. It is said in the preface to the famous Prayers for Today that, from now on, these prayers will be altered to allow the laity, on occasion, to recite the breviary with the priest. That involves falsifying the very definition of the breviary! The breviary is the prayer of the priest. The priest alone, under penalty of mortal sin, was bound to recite these hours–not the laity. The priest is God’s religious, he is a man of prayer, therefore he is given a breviary so that he may pray all day long, make his acts of thanksgiving and give praise to God, thus, in some way, continuing his Mass.
Now he is suddenly told:
Quote:“No, no, no! That is no longer the case. The priest’s prayers are prayers so composed that, on occasion, he may recite them with the laity.”
It is a complete illusion. Just think! People have no time to come to the parish church to say the breviary with the priest. Only someone with no experience of the priestly ministry could make such a suggestion.
Certainly, one might sometimes say evening prayers with the faithful, but all these prayers and often all those psalms, which are hard to understand! If one is bent on saying evening prayers with the faithful, it is better to choose very simple prayers the faithful understand; or else the true Latin, the beautiful Latin, sung as at Compline. People are united by the chant, by melody, and that lifts up their souls.
Nevertheless, we must keep our breviary. I assure you that it is a necessity. The more we give up our breviary, the fewer will be the sources of grace for our sanctification. You realize that we have gone back to the old psalter, with only those changes introduced in the revised version of St. Jerome’s Abbey. That was the wish of Pope John XXIII. He did not like the new psalter. He said so openly to the preconciliar central commission. He said to all of us who were there: “Oh, I’m not in favor of the new psalter.” He liked the old psalter. It now seems that the new breviary has reverted to the old psalter as modified by the study carried out by the monks of St. Jerome’s. That shows that there is sometimes a return to the sound solutions of the past.
I have heard that the Committee on Liturgy is preparing yet another decree on the Holy Mass. The priest will be free to act as he pleases, save to alter the words of the Consecration, which, however, have already been changed! Then everything will have been changed. The new decree will only give a few directions for framing new Canons. Each may frame the Canon as he please, a Canon that will be said to be adapted to his congregation.
Do you realize what they want to achieve! We should then be wrong to allow ourselves to be swept along by the current which leads to nothing other than the complete and absolute ruin of the holy sacrifice. I do not know what the bishops will think of it all. Will they be satisfied with this new reform, if it comes? It means the end of any conception of the liturgy. A liturgy without rules is no longer a liturgy.
It is for that reason that we must stand by our preconciliar position without fear of seeming to disobey the Church by carrying on a Tradition two thousand years old. That is impossible.
What should be the criterion of the ordinary magisterium if we are to know whether or not it is infallible? It is its faithfulness to all Tradition. To the extent to which he does not cling to Tradition, to that extent we are not bound by the acts of the Holy Father. The same is true of the Council. To the extent to which the Council is in line with Tradition, because it is the ordinary magisterium, we must conform. But to the extent to which that teaching is new or not in conformity with Tradition, there is greater liberty of choice. Hence, we must not refrain from judging things now since we cannot allow ourselves to be swept into the current of Modernism, risking the loss of our faith and unwittingly becoming Protestants.
It is that which is serious, and it is that which is happening to our poor faithful, unhappy people dragged unawares towards a new Protestantism, a “neo-modernism” as the Holy Father himself called it; serious for many priests, too! Then let us thank the good God who gives us the grace to see with some clarity in the unrest in the Church. Then let us stay united, as we have been united today, united in prayer, united in endeavor, united in our undertakings.
God is there. That is why we must not lose heart. God is there, keeping watch over His Church. It is for us to ensure that she shall endure through all the grievous trials that beset her.
Lefebvre, Marcel, A Bishop Speaks: Writings and Addresses 1963-1976. Kansas City: Angelus Press, E-Book
[Emphasis - The Catacombs]
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| Archbishop Lefebvre: 1980 Ordination Sermon - An official Church which is not the real Church |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-15-2020, 09:51 AM - Forum: Sermons and Conferences
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The Angelus - September 1980
The Archbishop Speaks: Ordinations Sermon June 1980
The Sermon of His Grace Monseigneur Marcel Lefebvre on the Occasion of the Ordinations to the Holy Priesthood 27 June 1980, Ecône
My dear brethren:
Is it not a profound joy, for all of us, to be assembled here again, for the annual ordinations to the priesthood? Many of you are faithful pilgrims who come each year to share our prayers, our joys, and our pains, but each time also numerous pilgrims come for the first time, and this year we have the special joy of receiving a group from the New World, 1who are attending this ceremony for the first time and getting acquainted with our seminary here at Ecône. I am sure they will return home full of consolations and great joy, full of assurance and conviction that they have seen the living Church, the Church Militant, the immemorial Church. They will go back and take with them what they have seen and heard and will therefore rejoice the hearts of the faithful who have not come, but who are with us in prayer, in thought, and in spirit.
My dear brethren, on the occasion of this ordination to the priesthood, we cannot help thinking that it was ten years ago that the Society of Saint Pius X was founded—ten years. The approval of Bishop Charriere for our Society was given to us on November 1, 1970, and here we are in 1980. In glancing back over these ten years, we can only sing a hymn of thanksgiving. Not to sing a hymn of thanksgiving today in our hearts, would be to ignore the favors of God, to fail in recognition and gratitude toward God himself, to Our Lord, to the Blessed Virgin Mary, to our patron saints and especially to Saint Pius X.
Yes, thanksgiving for all the favors, for all the blessings we have received, we, in particular, members of the Society of St. Pius X, and also, I would add, those who, for one reason or another, have thought it best to leave us; they have themselves paid tribute to the Society, they themselves have written us: "We will remember all our lives the favors and graces we received in the seminary at Ecône."
We cannot help thinking that today we should thank God and we in particular, dear friends, members of the Society of Saint Pius X; priests, those who are about to be ordained priests and subdeacons today, and all seminarians here present, not to mention all those who would like to be with us, from America, from Buenos Aires—priests of the Society who could not be present, but who had to remain in their priories or in their districts; they are certainly united with us today in thought and in prayer. So we thank God for the graces we have received under the protection of our holy pope, Pope Saint Pius X, and the Blessed Ever Virgin Mary, Our Mother in heaven.
What graces, my dear friends, above all the grace to have kept the treasures and the gifts which Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself gave to His Church, because that is the Society of Saint Pius X; it is nothing else, to keep us, to receive us, to do us good and to sanctify us by the gifts which Our Lord Jesus Christ put into the hands of His Apostles, which His Apostles bequeathed to Holy Church and which the Church has always given to us.
But today, when we consider the general condition of the churches, i.e., the parishes, the seminaries, the religious orders, then these gifts take on a value infinitely greater, because we could have been in that utterly baffling situation, thrown into total confusion. We could have found ourselves in that situation. Why has God chosen us? Why has God given us the grace to keep the Church going, and to preserve all these treasures of the Church? The treasure of faith, the treasure of grace, the treasure of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the treasure of the sacraments, treasures incomparable.
That is what we have received, my dear friends, and that is why we must thank God today; and I think I can include all who are joined to the Society of Saint Pius X in one way or another. I am thinking of our Sisters, our Sisters from Saint-Michel-en-Brenne; I am thinking also of all our oblates, religious and lay; I am thinking of all those who live with us, in our houses, everywhere and who are deeply united to the Society, and who therefore also share in the graces of the Society. And I must not forget all those who in one way or another have kept their fidelity to the Church and who are united with us. Is it not because we are united in this unity in the Faith of the Church, and in the sacraments of the Church and in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?
I think of those monasteries where today some will receive priestly ordination—the monastery of Dom Augustine, the monastery of Dom Gerard, both here present. I think of all those monasteries and convents of nuns who have also tried to keep the Faith, to keep Tradition and therefore are united to the priests who have remained faithful and who look in a sense to us, asking us to support them by our prayers and our encouragement: Dominican nuns at Brignoles, Fanjeaux, Poncallec, Carmelites, nuns here present; also nuns from Mainz, nuns from Schellenberg who are united with us in prayer. They could not come, because they are cloistered. All these nuns, and I could not forget how many nuns are united with us in thought and in their conviction that they must keep the immemorial Faith!
So then, all the graces received, all the vocations realized—priestly vocations, religious brothers and sisters, active and contemplative vocations: this is the Church, the Church which goes on. I think of all those priests who are here present, all who have shown us by example of faithfulness, who have encouraged us, and who themselves, I think, find encouragement in the example of the Society—all this is the Church, the Church which goes on.
And if we should thank God for the graces which have been given to the Society, I think we should also thank God for the graces given by the Society. I cannot help thinking of all the houses, scattered across the world, forty or more houses of our priests, and besides these, many places of worship which have been opened and which are served by our Fathers every Sunday.
And of course I do not forget all that is done by those dear priests who, like us, defend the Faith and who dedicate themselves with their whole heart and soul to celebrating the holy and immemorial Mass, administering the immemorial sacraments to their faithful people and thus preserving the Catholic Faith. Oh, I cannot forget them, but I think above all of what has been accomplished by the grace of God by the Society of Saint Pius X, the tenth anniversary of which we are celebrating; and so we can scarcely contemplate the graces which have been poured out upon us.
When I think of all the dying who have had a real priest, a priest who came to help them to die a holy death, who came to bring them the consolation of the sacraments of Extreme Unction, Communion, Viaticum—these souls have been strengthened and prepared to receive the grace of final perseverance. And all the children, all the schools that we have, by the grace of God, been able to open or to develop, so many children preserved from the contamination of the world, and who have kept the Faith. And all those families who gather in thousands upon thousands around our churches, often makeshift little churches like catacombs, where the sanctuary lamp shines—small, but always well kept, decorated with flowers, well arranged, little churches worthy of the Holy Mysteries which are celebrated, where everything is beautiful, even in poverty, by the care of the priest who faithfully preserves the ceremonies of the Church and who sees to it that his chapel is beautiful, beautiful for Our Lord Jesus Christ, beautiful for the holy angels who dwell there, beautiful for the Blessed Virgin Mary; so the faithful come into these chapels, into these churches, are consoled, strengthened, and feel there the grace of God, the grace of the Holy Ghost; and they go home refreshed, reassured that they have received into themselves the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by Holy Communion, the Eucharist, and thus the Church goes on.
There, my dear brethren, is what the Society is: schools, priories, parishes, chapels scattered over the world. And tomorrow, again with the grace of God, since all this is happening almost miraculously, tomorrow, the opening of a university in Paris. To tell the truth, I am astonished myself; I can't get over it. Of course we were dreaming, hoping some day to open and begin a university. And today in Paris, tomorrow in Rome, day after tomorrow perhaps in the United States, we would like to give the Truth, to communicate the Truth to those who no longer have it, who have lost it, who have been led astray by false modern philosophies.
What will happen to this world tomorrow if there is no longer any ability to recognize the Truth? To recognize the truth about philosophy, the truth about theology, the truth about Sacred Scripture and thus to recognize Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. What a joy then for us to think that these young men and women who will come to get this university education, will be pillars of the Truth, luminaries of Truth—everywhere they will be, and probably in important positions, which will make them a beacon for the spread of Truth.
So we thank God again that He Himself has sent us the professors we needed. These professors themselves came to us in Paris and told us: "It is this year or never for us; either you take us this year or we get other jobs and you can no longer count on us." What was I to do? Good professors, committed, who said: "From now on, after all that we have been through, we wish to be under the Society of Saint Pius X; we wish to teach under the authority of the Society of Saint Pius X; we wish one of your priests there, to direct and counsel us, because we feel that there, at least, the Church will be, and the Truth." So what was I to do? Faced with this proposition, in spite of the difficulties which that could mean, we decided to open this university; that is what God wanted, a unique, extraordinary occasion, which God has given us, something like a tenth anniversary gift. Let us thank him.
There, my dear brethren, is what God has done by means of the Society of Saint Pius X. And tomorrow, what will we be? Well, we will always be the same, we do not have to search out our path; we can only remain the Church; we can only keep the Church going; we can only keep preaching Our Lord Jesus Christ, preaching the Truth, teaching the Truth, and tomorrow, well, if God wishes (and I think He does wish it and will wish it), He will integrate us into the official Church, just as we are, just as we are.
It is not a question of changing, of going either to the right or to the left; we wish to remain the Church and we wish to remain what we have always been since the beginning of the Society, because we have no other motive than to keep the Church going; and thus we have always thought that one day, when God wills it, when He decides, then we will go back into the official Church, since they have put us out of an official Church which is not the real Church, an official Church which has been infested with Modernism; and so we believed in the duty of disobedience, if indeed it was disobedience! To obey, but to obey the immemorial Church, to obey all the Popes, to obey the whole Catholic Church.
So we thought it our duty to disobey those cardinals who asked us to adopt, in part, Modernist errors, because we did not want to poison our souls and our hearts with the errors which have been condemned by our holy patron, Saint Pius X, and we remain faithful to the anti-Modernist Oath—the oath which Saint Pius X requires us to take. We remain faithful to that. They will receive us with the oath in our hands, or we will remain what we are.2 And we are convinced, we hope, we pray for this, and perhaps, my dear brethren, things will soon work out. This goal which seems impossible—to be taken as we are, with what we are doing, with what we are accomplishing, with our Faith—this seems almost impossible. But God can do the impossible, and we are more hopeful than ever, we are perhaps closer than ever to being recognized officially in Holy Church, as the Society of Saint Pius X, with all that we are, all that we think, all that we believe, all that we do.
And so, by the same token, all those who, like us, have defended the same Faith, the same Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the same sacraments, will come with us, will be accepted by us. There is no doubt about it. So we must pray today, in a very special way, for this intention, because you can imagine what we would be, how many we would be here, if we were not persecuted by certain members of the Church. Not five or six thousand, but twenty thousand, fifty thousand would profit by the graces that God gives us, that the Church gives to us, whereas now they are dying of Christ, perishing, losing the Faith, abandoned. We must think of all these souls and hope these unjust persecutions against us may cease.
I CLOSE, MY DEAR FRIENDS, with a few words to you who are about to be ordained priests, and to you I say, "Keep your faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ." Everything depends on Our Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing exists without Our Lord Jesus Christ, nothing in the material world, nothing in the supernatural world. Without Jesus there is nothing. Jesus is the Creator of all things, Jesus is the Redeemer of all souls. Without Him, there is no hope. Without Him, there is no being, no possible existence. So what is Our Lord Jesus Christ? What are the essentials that you have studied in your theology? Jesus Christ is Savior; Jesus Christ is Priest; Jesus Christ is King. These are the three essential attributes of Our Lord Jesus Christ by the very fact of His hypostatic union, i.e., His union with God Himself in One Person.
So these three attributes: Savior-Redeemer, Priest and King, where are they made concrete? Where do we live them? Where do we grasp them? In Holy Mass. In Holy Mass, Our Lord Jesus Christ is Redeemer. Who can deny that? The sacrifice of the Cross is His Redemption, the Redemption of Our Lord. Thus in offering your Holy Sacrifice of the Mass you contribute to the Redemption of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Redemption which Our Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished.
Priest. But where is He more priest than in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? He is the Priest, you are only His ministers, you act only in the person of Christ, Who is the true Priest; thus your Sacrifice of the Mass is still Our Lord Jesus Christ in one of His essential attributes.
And finally, King. "God reigned from the Cross." Our Lord reigned from the wood of the Cross; that is His throne, that is His crown. There He has conquered the world, and there He has a right to His Kingship. So it is also in he Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that His Kingship shines forth irresistibly; we must all submit to Him and revere, adore and thank Him as King.
And so—Redeemer, Priest and King—this is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; all the days of your lives you will discover Our Lord in His essential attributes, and you will share in them.
Poor creatures that we are! To share in the essential attributes of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to share in His Redemption, to share in His priesthood, to share in His kingship what a responsibility! What a responsibility to all His faithful people! What a profound joy for you! With what humility and what joy you should perform the sacred mysteries! You should also bring your people to share in these attributes of Our Lord, by Holy Communion, by giving Jesus Christ Himself in the Eucharist. What a joy! Nothing is more beautiful than the priest distributing Holy Communion, nothing is greater, more sublime, nothing richer in virtues, in gifts, in graces. The faithful expect this of you.
Therefore, be faithful, my dear friends, be faithful to all you have been taught here at Ecône. It is only the echo of what the Church has always taught. Remain close to your seminary, remain close to what has made you a priest, remain close to the Society of Saint Pius X ;in this way you will be truly priests and through you Holy Church will go on, while waiting for your reward from the hands of your Mother in heaven, the Mother of the Priesthood, who has been by your side, here at Ecône, every day.
Oh, how touched we are, every evening, when we see you kneeling before the Blessed Virgin Mary before taking your rest; you say some prayers to the Blessed Virgin Mary, commending yourselves to her, asking her to sustain you, asking her to help you to become holy priests. And now, here you are ready to be sent out, ready to go, as Our Lord said, "Go forth, preach the Gospel." That is what you will do, and all our prayers today will go with you, the prayer of your parents, your friends, and all those who love you and who are united with you here below and in heaven.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
[Emphasis - The Catacombs]
1.TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: The Angelus Pilgrimage
2. TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: At this point His Grace was interrupted by the applause of those in attendance.
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| Conciliar US Bishops: No Problem taking CV Vaccine from Aborted Fetal Lines |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-15-2020, 08:48 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Spiritual]
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US bishops approve use of coronavirus vaccines with 'remote connection' to abortion
CNA Staff, Dec 14, 2020 / 09:00 am MT (CNA).- The United States bishops' conference has said that Catholics can take two of the three available COVID-19 vaccines, even though they were developed with a “remote connection” to “morally compromised” cell lines.
In a statement released Monday, the bishops also said it is morally permissible in some circumstances to receive a third vaccine, developed in close connection with aborted cell lines, but that Catholics cannot allow the pandemic to “desensitize” or “weaken our determination” to oppose the evil of abortion.
Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, the chair of the USCCB’s doctrine committee, and Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City in Kansas, chairman of the USCCB’s pro-life activities committee, outlined their concerns about the vaccines in statement dated December 11 and published on Dec. 14. Widespread rollout of coronavirus vaccine began in the United States on Dec. 14.
“In view of the gravity of the current pandemic and the lack of availability of alternative vaccines, the reasons to accept the new COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna are sufficiently serious to justify their use, despite their remote connection to morally compromised cell lines,” said the bishops.
Taking one of those vaccines, said the bishops, “ought to be understood as an act of charity toward the other members of our community.”
In the statement Monday, the two bishops also outlined concerns regarding the three vaccinations produced by Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca, and outlined the position taken by the Church on other vaccinations developed either in part or entirely from cell lines from an aborted child.
“The Holy See, through the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Pontifical Academy for Life, has offered guidance on the question of whether it is morally acceptable to receive a vaccine that has been created with the use of morally compromised cell lines,” the bishops said.
“Both the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Pontifical Academy for Life emphasize the positive moral obligation to do good and in so doing to distance oneself as much as possible from the immoral act of another party such as abortion.”
The bishops also noted that “with regard to people involved in the development and production of vaccines, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith explains that ‘in organizations where cell lines of illicit origin are being utilized, the responsibility of those who make the decision to use them is not the same as that of those who have no voice in such a decision.’”
In 1972, a female child was aborted in the Netherlands, and cells from her kidneys were extracted and developed into the cell line now known as “HEK293.” “HEK” stands for “Human Embryonic Kidney.” Cells from the HEK293 line have been commonly used in biologic research since the late 70s.
The vaccinations produced by Pfizer and Moderna did not use HEK293 in their design, development, or production, but did use cells from the line in a confirmatory test, said the bishops.
“While neither vaccine is completely free from any connection to morally compromised cell lines, in this case the connection is very remote from the initial evil of the abortion,” said the bishops.
Conversely, the vaccine produced by AstraZeneca “should be avoided if there are alternatives available,” said the bishops, as this vaccine is “more morally compromised.”
“The HEK293 cell line was used in the design, development, and production stages of that vaccine, as well as for confirmatory testing,” said Rhoades and Naumann. The two compared the AstraZeneca vaccine to the current rubella vaccine, which also was reliant on “morally compromised cell lines.”
In the case of the rubella (German measles) vaccine, explained the bishops, the risk posed to an unborn child and the community at large by the illness outweigh the morality concerns related to the development of the vaccine.
“In such a situation, parents are justified in having their children vaccinated against rubella, not only to avoid the effects of rubella on their children, but, secondarily and just as importantly, to prevent their children from becoming carriers of rubella, as the spread of rubella can lead to the infection of vulnerable pregnant women, thereby endangering their lives and the lives of their unborn children,” said the bishops.
Rhoades and Naumann acknowledged that while Catholics should avoid the AstraZeneca vaccine in preference for one of the other two, it may not be possible for someone to do this without putting society at risk from the coronavirus. If this were to happen, a Catholic would be permitted to receive that vaccine.
“It may turn out, however, that one does not really have a choice of vaccine, at least, not without a lengthy delay in immunization that may have serious consequences for one’s health and the health of others,” said the bishops.
“In such a case, just as accepting a vaccination for rubella with a morally compromised vaccine is morally permissible because of the lack of alternatives and the serious risk to the public health, so it would be permissible to accept the AstraZeneca vaccine,” they said.
A person who refuses to be vaccinated, said the bishops, has “a moral responsibility to undertake all the precautions necessary to ensure that one does not become a carrier of the disease to others, precautions which may include some form of self-isolation.”
While the vaccines for coronavirus are permissible to receive despite their moral flaws, it is imperative that Catholics “must be on guard so that the new COVID-19 vaccines do not desensitize us or weaken our determination to oppose the evil of abortion itself and the subsequent use of fetal cells in research,” they said.
“For our part, we bishops and all Catholics and men and women of good will must continue to do what we can to ensure the development, production, and distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine without any connection to abortion,” said the bishops.
[Emphasis mine.]
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| Canada warns people not to take Pfizer vaccine if they’re allergic to ‘any’ ingredients |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-15-2020, 08:32 AM - Forum: COVID Vaccines
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Health Canada warns people not to take Pfizer COVID vaccine if they’re allergic to ‘any’ ingredients
'People with allergies to any of the ingredients in the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID 19 vaccine should not receive it.'
December 14, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Health Canada is warning Canadians to avoid the newly approved COVID-19 vaccine created by Pfizer-BioNTech if they have allergies to any of its ingredients after some allergic reactions were reported in the U.K.
“People with allergies to any of the ingredients in the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID 19 vaccine should not receive it,” cautioned the Government of Canada’s health department in a Dec. 12 communication.
“Speak with your health professional about any serious allergies or other health conditions you may have before you receive this vaccine,” it added.
Health Canada related that two individuals in the U.K. reported “severe allergic reactions to Pfizer BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine on December 8, 2020.”
“Health Canada has followed up on the two reports of anaphylactoid reactions to Pfizer BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine in the U.K. These reactions occurred on December 8, 2020. Both individuals in the U.K. had a history of severe allergic reactions and carried adrenaline auto injectors. They both were treated and have recovered,” the health department stated.
Health Canada listed the ingredients of the vaccine.
Medicinal ingredient:
Non-medicinal ingredients:- ALC-0315 = ((4-hydroxybutyl)azanediyl)bis(hexane-6,1-diyl)bis(2-hexyldecanoate)
- ALC-0159 = 2-[(polyethylene glycol)-2000]-N,N-ditetradecylacetamide
- 1,2-Distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine
- cholesterol
- dibasic sodium phosphate dihydrate
- monobasic potassium phosphate
- potassium chloride
- sodium chloride
- sucrose
- water for injection
Canada approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, which was tested using fetal cells from an aborted baby, on Wednesday last week.
Children of God for Life reported that although the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was not developed using a cell line derived from an aborted baby, it was tested — that is, the laboratory phase which verifies the quality of the vaccine on cell tissues — using the HEK-293 cell line, which was derived from an aborted baby.
The vaccine is currently approved for people who are “16 years of age and older.”
“Its safety and effectiveness in people younger than 16 years of age have not yet been established,” the government agency said in its report authorizing use in Canada.
While the vaccine in Canada is, so far, voluntary, some Canadian provinces are now floating the idea of a COVID-19 “immunity passport” in order to travel, go to work, visit the theater, etc.
“That’s going to be really important for people to have [proof of COVID vaccination] for travel purposes, perhaps for work purposes, for going to theatres or cinemas or any other places where people will be in closer physical contact when we get through the worst of the pandemic,” Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott told reporters last Tuesday.
“So yes, that will be essential for people to have that. … That’s their choice. This is not going to be a mandatory campaign. It will be voluntary. There may be some restrictions that may be placed on people that don’t have vaccines for travel purposes, to be able to go to theaters and other places,” she added.
The left-leaning Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) called the idea of an “immunity passport” “wrongheaded.”
Michael Bryant, CCLA’s executive director and general counsel, warned in a Dec. 12 email to supporters against the “dangers of society stratification -- historic oppression and discrimination that comes with publicly labelling haves and have nots.”
“Besides, the public health goal of the vaccine is to cross the threshold for herd immunity within a population. Getting to that threshold is the public health challenge, not publicly identifying the innoculators,” Bryant said.
“None of this is intended to encourage or discourage personal choices about vaccination. The impugned Cabinet Minister herself emphasized that vaccines would not be forced upon anyone by law,” he continued.
“My favourite point ends up being made by Dr. Seuss, for which I have our privacy director to thank. Rather than pitting the star-bellied Sneetches against those without, we are better off affirming that Canadians are Canadians, deserving of privacy, equality and mobility, regardless of whether they advertise their vaccine credentials,” Bryant added.
The CCLA sent an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Dec. 12 to warn him about the “bad idea” of immunity passports.
“But first it must be said, that the overall human rights challenge with Immunity Passports arises from the disconnect between means and ends. As you know well, the point of the vaccine is to achieve the herd immunity threshold, upon which the proportion of the population immune to the disease is greater than the percentage of the population capable of getting the disease for it to spread. That threshold crossed, the whole community becomes protected – not just the immunized. Herd immunity makes it possible to protect the population from a disease, including those who cannot be vaccinated, such as newborns or those who have compromised immune systems,” the letter stated.
“If the point of an Immunity Passport is to coerce inoculation, then this raises the issue of individual liberty and government mandated medical treatment, discussed below. But Canadian governments say that they are not mandating inoculation. Accordingly, the purpose of the Immunity Passport, or Immunization Passport, is unrelated to crossing the herd immunity threshold. If it is not about herd immunity, we would argue, then its purpose is wrongheaded and misleading,” it continued.
“It is wrongheaded because of its negative human rights consequences, discussed below. It is misleading, because possession of an inoculation record does not, in fact, equal immunity or proof of not being infected. Nor does the absence of a passport mean that the person is a carrier of COVID, or otherwise susceptible. The inoculated could be infected – they could be one of the few for whom the vaccine fails – just as the uninoculated could be immune. The herd immunity threshold can be achieved notwithstanding these exceptions, however, which is why immunity passports put the cart before the horse,” the letter added.
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| Mexico approves biometric ID card to help ‘address demographic changes’ |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-15-2020, 08:28 AM - Forum: Socialism & Communism
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Mexico approves biometric ID card to help ‘address demographic changes’
A new General Population Law enables a government database that has Mexicans' personal data, including an individual's unique physical characteristics.
December 14, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Mexico passed a New General Population Law that aims for the creation of a “Unique Digital Identity Card” and to “enable the government to address demographic changes, mortality, fertility, and international migration.”
The new General Law on Population, Human Mobility and Interculturality, passed by the Chamber of Deputies in Mexico with 426 votes in favor, three abstentions, and one against, “will enable the Ministry of the Interior to create a database with the personal data of Mexicans, including biometrics,” reported Forbes Mexico.
The Cédula Única de Identidad Digital (Unique Digital Identity Card) is to become “the official identification document for all Mexicans,” and will be issued to those in Mexico and also to those living abroad, according to BiometricUpdate.com.
The card will contain citizens’ “names, surnames, date of birth, place of birth, nationality, and biometric data, together with a unique Population Registration Key (CURP) number.”
The stated purpose of the identity card is not just to “guarantee the right to identity,” but to “address” demographic changes.
The identity card “will enable the government to address demographic changes, mortality, fertility, and international migration,” according to Representative César Agustín Fernández Pérez (Morena).
The Yucatan Times reported, “In a bulletin published online, the Chamber of Deputies stated that the new General Population Law aims to “establish the bases for inter-institutional coordination to formulate and conduct population and intercultural policy that addresses the causes and consequences of demographic dynamics and guarantees the right to identity.”
Mexico’s previous General Population Law, created in 1974 and last reformed in 2014, provides for the execution of “measures required” for family planning programs through “education and public health services,” “with the purpose of rationally regulating and stabilizing the growth of population.”
The new General Population Law requires the National Population Registry to “contain the certificate number of disability, when applicable, and “self-inscription as a member of the indigenous peoples or Afro-Mexican population.”
[Emphasis mine.]
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| December 15th - Blessed John the Discalced and St. Maximin of Verdun |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 12-14-2020, 11:51 PM - Forum: December
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Blessed John the Discalced
Franciscan Friar
(1280-1349)
Blessed John the Discalced was born near Quimper in France. In his youth he was a laborer; he made and erected crosses, built bridges and arches. Works useful for the glory of God or the welfare of his neighbor were the ones most agreeable to him. However, God was calling him higher, and by perseverance he succeeded in studying to receive the priesthood, despite the opposition and mockery of an artisan from whom he had learned his trade, one of his relatives.
From that moment on his life was very austere; he fasted three times a week on bread and water, visited the poor and the sick, and became the object of universal veneration. For thirteen years he served as a parish priest in his diocese, and never did he take a horse for his parish visits, but walked barefoot; hence his name, the Discalced or unshod. His very frugal life might have permitted him to set money aside, but the indigent received all that was not strictly necessary for him, and sometimes that as well.
The holy priest then entered the Order of Saint Francis. In the monastery at Quimper, Brother John was soon recognized to be the most humble and most mortified of all. The spirit of poverty made him choose the most worn habits, which he repaired himself. Since he had nothing to give away, he begged from the wealthy and thus assisted the miserable. He rose every night before the others, and very often spent entire nights in the charms of mental prayer.
The devil sometimes waged a fierce war on him, but the holy religious, trusting in God, manifested his contempt for the tempter, calling him dog, and driving him away by words of distress and supplication from the Psalms. His mortification was extreme; he fasted unceasingly on bread and water save for forty days during the year, and for sixteen years touched no meat or wine. He had the gift of tears in his ministry of confession, and the spirit of prophecy which revealed to him future public chastisements. He foresaw and announced the siege and capture of Quimper before the intention had been formed in the mind of the assailants. Great cruelties accompanied it, and a famine followed.
He also foresaw the pestilence which would afflict it in 1349, and wept. When the other religious asked him what was wrong, he told them only that the city would be afflicted again with a new calamity. He devoted himself to serving the plague-stricken, offered his life to God in sacrifice, and died of the terrible scourge in that year, at the age of sixty-nine. The city remains devoted to his memory, and his statue is in its cathedral.
![[Image: sdj15dec.jpg]](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cZ7NbD6qoR4/Tum8sHUeepI/AAAAAAAAC6k/cjZ6jVARyl0/w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu/sdj15dec.jpg) Saint Maximin or Mesmin of Verdun
Abbot of Micy
(† 520)
Saint Maximin was a native of Verdun. A priest named Euspicius, uncle of Maximin, brought about a reconciliation between the French monarch Clovis and his subjects of that city, after the latter had engaged in a revolt. Clovis, appreciating the virtues of the good priest, persuaded Euspicius to take up his residence at the court in Orleans; and the servant of God took Saint Maximin, his nephew, with him. Maximin was ordained a deacon by the bishop of Orleans, and then a priest.
A site about two leagues from the city was given by Clovis to Euspicius for a monastery. He with Maximin and several disciples built there the large monastery, of which he then took charge. His young assistant knew well how to attract many young men of admirable piety and fervor to the religious state.
At the death of the Abbot two years later, the young priest was appointed to replace him. Solitaries left their cells to come and place themselves under his direction, and soon the gift of miracles was bestowed upon the abbot. He multiplied wine and grain during a famine, to assist the afflicted people; he delivered a possessed man and cured two blind men, though he knew one of them had become blind only after he maliciously cut down a tree belonging to the monastery. Through his prayers he brought about so many other prodigies that he was called the thaumaturge of his century.
His soul was soon ripe for the beatitude he had earned, and after having governed his monastery for ten years, he died as he had lived, in the odor of sanctity, and in the arms of his spiritual sons, on the 15th of December in about the year 520.
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| Saints and Religious on Prophecy |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 12-14-2020, 11:31 PM - Forum: Catholic Prophecy
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St. Jerome
" All prophecy is shrouded in enigmas and disconnected meanings; the prophet passes from one object to another, lest by keeping the order of events he make a story rather than a prophecy."
(In Isaiah, XVI, 1).
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| Dom Prosper Guéranger: The Third Week of Advent |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-14-2020, 02:48 PM - Forum: Advent
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Third Week of Advent
MONDAY OF THE THIRD WEEK OF ADVENT
Prope est jam Dominus: venite, adoremus. The Lord is now nigh; come, let us adore.
Quote:De Isaia Propheta.
Cap. xxviii.
Haec dicit Dominus Deus : Ecce ego mittam in fundamentis Sion lapidem, lapidem probatum, angularem, pretiosum, in fundamento fundatum; qui crediderit, non festinet. Et ponam in pondere judicium, et justitiam in mensura; et subvertet grando spem mendacii, et protectionem aquae inundabunt. Et delebitur foedus vestrum cum morte, et pactum vestrum cum inferno non stabit.
From the Prophet Isaias.
Ch. xxviii.
Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will lay a stone in the foundations of Sion, a tried stone, a corner stone, a precious stone, founded in the foundation. He that believeth, let him not hasten. And I will set judgment in weight, and justice in measure: and hail shall overturn the hope of falsehood: and waters shall overflow its protection. And your league with death shall be abolished, and your covenant with hell shall not stand.
Heavenly Father! Thou art preparing to set in the foundations of Sion a corner-stone, that is tried and solid; and this stone, which is to give firmness to Sion Thy Church, is Thy Incarnate Son. It was prefigured, as Thy apostle assures us, (1 Cor x. 4) by that rock of the desert, which yielded the abundant and saving stream that quenched the thirst of Thy people. But now Thou art about to give us the reality; it has already come down from heaven, and the hour is fast approaching when Thou wilt lay it in the foundations, O sacred Stone, which makest all one, and givest solidity to the whole structure! By Thee it will come to pass, that there shall be no longer Jew or Gentile, but all nations shall become one family. Men shall no more build on sand, nor set up houses which floods and storms may overturn.
The Church shall rise up from the stone which God now sets, and, secure on the great foundation, her summit shall touch the clouds. With all his weakness, and all his fickleness, man will partake of Thy immutability, O divine Stone, if he will but lean on Thee. Woe to him that rejects Thee, for Thou hast said, and Thou art the eternal Truth: ‘Whosoever shall fall upon that stone, shall be bruised; and upon whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.’ (St Matt. xxi. 44) From this twofold evil, O Thou that art chief corner-stone, deliver us, and never permit us to be of the number of those blind men who rejected Thee. Give us grace ever to honour and love Thee as the cause of our strength, and the one sole origin of our solidity: and since Thou hast communicated this Thy quality of the rock to one of Thine apostles, and by him to his successors unto the end of the world, grant us ever to cling to this rock, the holy Roman Church, in union with which all the faithful on the face of the earth are preparing to celebrate the glorious solemnity of Thy coming, O precious and tried Stone! Thou art coming, that Thou mayst destroy the kingdom of falsehood, and break the league which mankind had made with death and hell.
HYMN FOR ADVENT
(In the Mozarabic breviary, first Sunday of Advent)
Let all the assembly of Christ’s faithful ones laud the graces that are nigh, and sing their highest praises to their Creator.
When his only-begotten Son, who created this world, redeemed us, he fulfilled the promises which the heavensent prophets spoke in ages past.
The Word having come down from heaven, and shown himself to men, took away the punishment due to their sins; and assuming our nature, though but dust, he vanquished the prince of death.
Born of a Mother in time, but begotten eternally from the Father, in the two substances there is but one Person, that is the Person of the Word.
God has come into this world made man, that our old man being changed into the new, we may put on new beauty by being regenerated in the new-born God.
Let the Gentiles, who have received this new birth of grace, in gladness and exultation at the trophy won by the divine Nativity, keep every year its feast.
Let this coming of Jesus be celebrated with devout solemnity by all, who have so just a share in the glory of this great day.
That so, when the second coming shall burst upon the world and fill it with fear, this most humble expression of our devout celebration of the first may give us confidence.
To God the Father, and to his only Son, and to the holy Spirit, be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
PRAYER FROM THE AMBROSIAN MISSAL
(In the Mass of the sixth Sunday of Advent - Preface)
Vere dignum et justum est, aequum et salutare, nos beatae semper Virginis Mariae solemnia celebrare, quae parvo utero Dominum coeli portavit; et, angelo praenuntiante, Verbum carne mortali edidit Salvatorem. Hic est mundi Redemptor, castis conceptus visceribus; clausa ingrediens, et clausa relinquens.
It is truly meet and just, right and available to salvation, that in this holy time we should celebrate the memory of the ever blessed Virgin Mary, who carried in the narrow inclosure of her womb the Lord of heaven, and who, according as the angel had foretold her, brought forth the Word become our Saviour in our mortal flesh. This is he who is the Redeemer of the world, conceived in a chaste womb, his Mother both then and at his birth remaining ineffably the Virgin.
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| 1982 SSPX General Chapter: Principles & Directives in the Present Situation of the Churc |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-14-2020, 11:45 AM - Forum: Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
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The Angelus - February 1983
Principles & Directives of the SSPX In the Present Situation of the Church
The General Chapter of the Society of St. Pius X took place at Ecône, Switzerland, September 13-16, 1982. During the previous week, a retreat was preached by His Grace the Archbishop to seventy-three of the Society's priests who were gathered from around the world. After the retreat, thirty-one members of the Chapter met to consider all aspects of the Society 's work during its first twelve years of existence and to plan for its future. What follows is a statement of the position of the Society of St. Pius X with regard to key questions which are most frequently asked.
THE CHURCH, Mystical Spouse and Mystical Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ, was instituted by Him to continue and perfect His work of Redemption. To this effect He endowed her with an hierarchical government, a Magisterium and a ministry destined to illuminate the intellect with the light of faith and sanctify souls by the communication of His divine life. Thus souls are destined to eternal life, the object of Divine Love accomplished in the Creation and the Redemption. These wonderful means are therefore destined to transmit the precious deposit of faith and to communicate the precious gift of grace. The hierarchy of the Apostles possessed these means which were already essentially and substantially perfect. No truth or any means of sanctification was wanting to the Apostles.
Anything which can be given greater precision in the deposit of faith is implicitly contained in it. All that manifests the richness of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacraments only serves to highlight the sacramental graces, to enlighten the faithful, and dispose them to receive the Divine gifts. The continuous and infallible teaching of the Church and the exercise of her public life during the course of the centuries constitutes Tradition which is truly divine and therefore unchangeable. If, in its presentation, it can undergo certain adaptations, these adaptations of language or rites cannot but better transmit Tradition and never obscure it or even less, alter it.
The Church has always dreaded novelties, even in her vocabulary and that is why she has held on so strongly to the Latin language in the principal form of Tradition, viz. the Roman Church. For it is by a tendency to novelty that heresies, schisms, and errors have come about. This spirit of novelty, mutation, and change has succeeded in entering into the Church. It necessarily tends to destroy Tradition.
The Second Vatican Council, which wished to be the Council of "up-dating," opened the door to this spirit of change and novelty. The consequences and fruits are before our eyes; they are what allowed Pope Paul VI to make allusion to the auto-destruction of the Church.
One of the changes which affects the Church in that which is most essential to her is the liturgical change for it affects the very work of the Redemption: the Sacrifice of the Saviour, and as a necessary consequence,the priesthood of the Saviour and all who participate in it.
The self-defense of the Faith and the priesthood could not but manifest itself throughout the entire Catholic world. The Society of St. Pius X itself had also to make a sad choice either to follow the new reforms or to maintain the true sacrifice and the true priesthood. There was no hesitation: One does not sacrifice the greatest realities of Tradition to a false ecumenism. The Mass according to the traditional rites and the traditional priesthood would be jealously conserved, priestly formation and priestly life inspired by the best sources of tradition following the example of holy priests such as the last canonized Pope, Saint Pius X.
It is evident that the reformers could not tolerate a fidelity to the Church and to Tradition which placed their infidelity in evidence. Persecution was unleashed all the more that the effects of these reforms were terrible, especially in regard to the priesthood which was gravely affected.
This first stage of the active resistance of the Society was relatively easy, until 1974. Then came the second stage, that of canonical penalties which, being unsuccessful, were followed by a persecution of controversy.
Quote:"Your resistance places you in opposition to the Pope himself and puts you in a state of grave disobedience."
I deny the assumption that the Pope can oblige us to abandon the tradition of the Church on an essential point. If the Pope takes up a position in this sense it is because he is subject to pressures and he is all the more disposed to submit to them insofar as he himself is liberal.
The corruption of ideas in the Roman Curia is such that certain of its members arrogate illegitimate rights to themselves, especially the Secretariat of State. Rome is invaded by Modernists.
In the face of this state of affairs of which it is difficult for those who have not frequented the Roman Curia to have an exact idea, the defenders of tradition are divided. Some say that the Decrees of Rome, signed or carried out by the Pope, are so bad that the Pope cannot be a legitimate Pope, he is a usurper. There is therefore no Pope, the See is vacant. Others affirm that the Pope cannot sign decrees which are destructive of the Faith and therefore these decrees are acceptable and one must submit to them. The Society [of St. Pius X] does not accept one or the other of these two solutions, but supported by the history of the Church and the doctrine of theologians, thinks that the Pope can favorize the ruin of the Church by choosing bad collaborators and allowing them to act, by signing decrees which do not engage his infallibility, sometimes even by his own admission, which cause considerable harm to the Church. Nothing is more dangerous to the Church than liberal Popes who are in a continual state of incoherence.
On the other hand, we think that God can allow the Church to be afflicted with this misfortune. Consequently we pray for the Pope but we refuse to follow him in his folly in regard to religious liberty, ecumenism, socialism and the application of reforms which are ruinous for the Church. Our apparent disobedience is true obedience to the Church and the Pope as successor of Peter in the measure that he continues to maintain Tradition.
Quote:"By your attitude of refusal of the New Order of Mass and the new rites, you give the impression that these rites are invalid."
It is one thing to say that they are invalid, and another to say that they are bad. We say that they are bad because the intention which governed these changes is bad. It is that expressed by Mgr. Bugniniin the L'OsservatoreRomano of 19 March 1965. The modifications introduced into the rites are also opposed to the doctrine of the Holy Mass and the Sacraments. Our pastoral attitude which refuses these reforms follows from this.
The facts confirm our pastoral action. We are witnessing the loss of faith among the faithful and the clergy. When the Faith runs the risk of being changed or perverted nothing must be neglected to avoid this perversion.This is an elementary moral principle.
With regard to validity, moral theology and Canon Law indicate the necessary conditions: A validly ordained minister, the correct matter and form, and the intention of doing what the Church does, i.e., what she has always done and has the intention of doing and that which she will always do.
It should be noted that the study of this validity should especially be made from now on with the translations which are in use, given that Latin is no longer used. In this case it is easy to reveal the wrong ideas of the liturgical commissions which profit from this to use Protestant terminology. The confusion is total, and the danger of invalidity is very great. In this domain "auto-destructions" causes havoc.
This is yet another important incentive to refuse the reforms and to draw one's inspiration for pastoral action from the attitude of the Church with regard to schismatic and heretical sects.
Quote:"Are you among those who say that it is impossible to assist at the New Order without committing a grave sin?"
Evidently not. Those who speak in this way do not know what a grave sin is and forget the laws of moral theology which require a concrete act to be judged in the circumstances which modify the morality of the act. Many of those who assist at the New Order of Mass have not sufficient knowledge of the danger to their faith. They find themselves in a situation similar to that of large numbers of Catholics in the 16th century who allowed themselves to be drawn into Protestantism by their priests or bishops, especially in England and Germany. They saw their mentality and their faith being transformed little by little by their participation in the reformed liturgy with which the New Order of Mass has much in common.
This is why we must make them realize the danger to their faith while treating them with indulgence.
The adherence of bishops and priests to the reforms is much more grave. Many suffer from this dilemma which puts them either in opposition to authority or in opposition to their faith in their priesthood. Few have the courage to remain faithful and many prefer to retire or submit unwillingly. They do not have the gift of fortitude of the martyrs.
Quote:"Is your attitude assumed in a rejection of the Council from which the reforms have come?"
The Council should have been the occasion of the reaffirmation of the Truth of the Church and the necessity of the social reign of Jesus and Mary against the errors of Protestantism and Teilhardian naturalism and against socialism and communism. Ordinary Protestants would have been converted en masse. They were disposed to it and their debacle was profound on the eve of the Council. But the Modernists, traitors to the Church, used the Council to favor their compromise with all the modern errors, profiting from a weak pope and a pope disposed to radical changes. All of the commentators on the Council recognize the triumph of the liberals who did not hide their satisfaction and who neutralized or drove from the Roman Curia all of the conservatives and who took the reins of government, centralizing power in the Secretariat of State in order to be certain of managing the ecumenical revolution so much desired by the enemies of the Church.
The work was quickly carried out in all fields. Destruction also followed quickly.
In this pastoral Council the spirit of error and lies was able to work at its ease, placing time-bombs everywhere which, in due course, would destroy the institutions. One must therefore understand "accept the Council in the light of Tradition" in the sense of "correct the Council in the direction of the eternal principles of Tradition." This is, moreover, what Pope Paul VI began to do by placing in the acts of the Council the nota explicativa for the document Lumen Gentium. Let us admit that this is something new for a Council.
Such has always been the attitude and the thoughts of the Society on the Second Vatican Council; a pastoral Council as it defines itself (notification of 16 November 1964). The Council is an act of non-infallible teaching and consequently susceptible to being influenced in a bad sense. It is therefore a question of applying the criterion of Tradition to the different documents of the Council in order to know what is to be retained, what is to be clarified, and what is to be rejected.
Quote:"Your practical attitude in the apostolate puts the members of the Society in constant opposition to Canon Law."
In frequent opposition to the letter of certain laws, it is true, but not with the fundamental laws of Canon Law, the principal of which obliges all pastors of souls: Prima lex, salus animarum.[1]
On the other hand, [color+71101d]Canon Law itself foresees numerous exceptions to the law, authorizing in particular cases that which is generally refused. Thus it is for jurisdiction of different sacraments. Is not the essential duty of the bishop to perpetuate the priesthood?[/color]That which is permitted in the natural order in exceptional situations, i.e., cataclysms, conflagrations, wars, etc., in virtue of general laws is all the more so in the order of the salvation of souls in analogous situations. When this exceptional situation comes to an end, everything will return to order without any problems. All of the members of the Society have only one desire: To be subject in filial obedience to Rome which has returned to Tradition.
This line of conduct has been that of the Society—which in no way pretends to substitute itself for the Magisterium of the Church—since the beginning of its existence and it has never varied. Many strive to radicalize us or to liberalize us. Because of these opposing efforts a certain number of young priests, seminary lecturers and seminarians have preferred to leave us. However, the great majority of priests and seminarians are faithful to the spirit of the Society which strives on all points to be faithful to the spirit of the Church and to follow her indefectibly in her consolations and in her trials, in the footsteps of all those who, during the course of the centuries, have professed that the Jesus of yesterday is the same as that of today and of tomorrow. Jesus Christus heri, hodie, ipse et in saecula.
Virgo fidelis orapro nobis!
†Marcel Lefebvre
(Issued by the General Chapter of the Society of Saint Pius X,Ecône, Switzerland,13-16 September 1982.)
1.The first law is the salvation of souls.
[Emphasis - The Catacombs]
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| Archbishop Lefebvre: Open Letter to Pope John Paul II - November 1983 |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-14-2020, 11:28 AM - Forum: Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
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Open letter to Pope John Paul II: An Episcopal Manifesto
Given at Rio de Janiero, Brazil on November 21, 1983
Holy Father,
May Your Holiness permit us, with an entire filial openness, to submit to you the following considerations. During the last twenty years the situation in the Church is such that it looks like an occupied city.
Thousands of members of the clergy, and millions of the faithful, are living in a state of anguish and perplexity because of the "self-destruction of the Church." They are being thrown into confusion and disorder by the errors contained in the documents of the Second Vatican Council, the post-conciliar reforms, and especially the liturgical reforms, the false notions diffused by official documents and by the abuse of power perpetrated by the hierarchy.
In these distressing circumstances, many are losing the Faith, charity is becoming cold, and the concept of the true unity of the Church in time and in space is disappearing.
In our capacity as bishops of the Holy Catholic Church, successors of the Apostles, our hearts are overwhelmed at the sights throughout the world, by so many souls who are bewildered yet desirous in continuing in the faith and morals which have been defined by the Magisterium of the Church and taught by Her in a constant and universal manner. It seems to us that to remain silent in these circumstances would be to become accomplices to these wicked works (cf. II Jn. 11).
That is why we find ourselves obliged to intervene in public before Your Holiness (considering all the measures we have undertaken in private during the last fifteen years have remained ineffectual) in order to denounce the principal causes of this dramatic situation, and to beseech Your Holiness to use his power as Successor of Peter to "confirm your brothers in the Faith" (Luke 22, 32), which has been faithfully handed down to us by Apostolic Tradition.
To that end we have attached to this letter an appendix containing the principal errors which are at the origins of this tragic situation and which, moreover, have already been condemned by your predecessors. The following list outlines these errors, but it is not exhaustive:
Quote:1. A latitudinarian and ecumenical notion of the Church, divided in its faith, condemned in particular by the Syllabus, No. 18 (Den. 2918).
2. A collegial government and a democratic orientation in the Church, condemned in particular by Vatican Council I (Den. 3055).
3. A false notion of the natural rights of man which clearly appears in the document on Religious Liberty, condemned in particular by Quanta cura (Pius IX) and Libertas praestantissimum (Leo XIII)
4. An erroneous notion of the power of the Pope (cf. Den. 3115).
5. A Protestant notion of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacraments, condemned by the Council of Trent, Session XXII.
6. Finally, and in a general manner, the free spreading of heresies, characterized by the suppression of the Holy Office.
The documents containing these errors cause an uneasiness and a disarray, so much the more profound as they come from a source so much the more elevated. The clergy and the faithful most moved by this situation are, moreover, those who are the most attached to the Church, to the authority of the Successor of Peter, and to the traditional Magisterium of the Church.
Most Holy Father, it is urgently necessary that this disarray come to an end because the flock is dispersing and the abandoned sheep are following mercenaries. We beseech you, for the good of the Catholic Faith and for the salvation of souls, to reaffirm the truths, contrary to these errors, truths which have been taught for twenty centuries in the Church
It is with the sentiments of St. Paul before St. Peter, when he reproached him for having not followed "the truth of the Gospel (Gal. 2, 11-14), that we are addressing you. His aim was none other than to protect the faith of the flock.
St. Robert Bellarmine, expressing on this occasion a general moral principle, states that one must resist the pontiff whose actions would be prejudicial to the salvation of souls (De Rom. Pon., I.2, c.29).
Thus it is with the purpose of coming to the aid of Your Holiness that we utter this cry of alarm, rendered all the more urgent by the errors, not to say the heresies, of the new Code of Canon Law and by the ceremonies and addresses on the occasion of the Fifth Centenary of the birth of Luther. Truly, this is the limit!
May God come to your aid, Most Holy Father. We are praying without ceasing for you to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Deign to accept the sentiments of our filial devotion,
H.E. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre,
International Seminary of St. Pius X
Econe, Switzerland
H.E. Bishop Antonio de Castro-Mayer
Riachuelo 169, C.P. 255
28100 Campos, (RJ) Brazil
[Emphasis - The Catacombs]
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| Archbishop Lefebvre: 1983 Press Conference on the 'Open Letter of Archbishop Lefebvre to the Pope' |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-14-2020, 11:09 AM - Forum: Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
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The Angelus - May 1984
The Archbishop's Press Conference
Paris - 9 December 1983
In our January issue, we published the very important Open Letter of Archbishop Lefebvre to the Pope [see below - The Catacombs], its importance enhanced by the fact that it is also signed by a second bishop, Antonio de Castro-Mayer, retired Bishop of Campos (Brazil). The date of the Letter is also significant: November 21, (1983), the same date on which, nine years earlier, he wrote at Ecône, his now famous Declaration in response to the scandals caused at the Seminary by the Visitors from Rome. He mentioned that point in this article which is the text of a press conference he held in France in November, to focus the light of publicity on his Letter to the Holy Father, and thus hopefully give it greater impact. It is translated by Father Philip Stark from the January-February issue of Fideliter,a magazine of the Society of St. Pius X.
Question: We gather from everything you say that your meetings in private with the Vatican have borne no fruit. Do you think that this sort of public approach—this Open Letter—will bear any fruit?
Archbishop Lefebvre: I place my hopes in Providence. In answer to your question, I don't know, but we are fulfilling our responsibility to the people and to the priests, because we are being accused of doing nothing. People say, "You are constantly talking of your contact with Rome, but finally is anything being done? Are you really doing anything?" We ourselves see nothing. We see no results. We must speak louder. We must speak more openly.
Question: How about Bishop de Castro-Mayer? Is he also getting ready one day to ordain priests?
Archbishop Lefebvre: Well, he has already ordained some in his diocese, because you know he was a diocesan bishop. And now you know that the bishop who succeeded him, a progressivist, has closed the seminary and driven out the priests. But Bishop de Castro-Mayer has once again collected his seminarians together in a house and he is continuing to form them and certainly he will also ordain them. Clearly he is being forced by events to take the same attitude as myself because now his priests are being persecuted. He had 29 secular priests, 25 of whom were carrying on Tradition under his direction. Now that he has handed in his resignation and is no longer a diocesan bishop, the new bishop is persecuting these 25 priests. He has already put three or four of them out of their parishes. And he is using the radio, the newspapers, the press, the law courts and the police against these priests. It is unheard of, the persecution that they can undergo, even though the whole population is with them.
Question: You speak of a dialogue with Rome and, as far as we are concerned, we hear you saying today exactly what you were saying ten years ago. Can there really be any dialogue established between you and Rome?
Archbishop Lefebvre: I think that Rome will nevertheless pay a little more attention to an Open Letter published throughout the entire world than to a conversation, since they are not listening to me. Perhaps they will listen a little more like this.
Question: Are you disturbed by finding yourself opposite 2,000 bishops as though you are the absolute truth?
Archbishop Lefebvre: The truth does not depend upon me, or else the Church went astray for twenty centuries. All I am doing is to continue what I was taught, that is to say, what the Credo and the Catechism of all times teach. You can see for yourselves that the catechisms are being changed. All the traditional catechisms—the Catechism of the Council of Trent, the Catechism of St. Pius X, the Catechism of Cardinal Gasparri—are all these catechisms no longer worth anything because the French bishops have just published a brand new one? It's madness. Catechism and Catholic doctrine cannot change. Our Credo cannot change. The moral law cannot change. It's inconceivable.
Question: Are there just two of you in the whole Church who realize this?
Archbishop Lefebvre: No, I don't think so. As I was telling you, there are many who realize inside what is going on, but we are the only two to cry out. But go and see them and they will tell you, yes, in fact, it's unacceptable, it's really sad to see what is going on, it's unfortunate that the children have catechism like that in their hands, but what do you expect us to do? It's the episcopal conference which decides. Rome it is true, has spoken a little against these catechisms, but it wasn't truly decisive. They weren't courageous.
Question: In your opinion, is there terrorism going on inside the Catholic Church?
Archbishop Lefebvre: To speak of terrorism is going a bit far. It's a strong word. But there is tyranny. I consider that the way in which the priests of Campos are actually being persecuted is a veritable tyranny. I think that behind the Iron Curtain, among the Soviets, no one is being persecuted any more.
Question: How do you see the Church in France at this moment?
Archbishop Lefebvre: I think a good number of bishops are no longer Catholic. We are in the state England was in at the moment it passed over to Protestantism. One fine day England woke up to find itself Protestant and Anglican. All the bishops, priests and people went over to Anglicanism, and they thought they were doing the right thing. Well, with the Church in France, it's the same thing. It is in the process of passing over to Modernism, worse than Anglicanism. And nobody is waking up! Everybody is swallowing this poison. The Church is going to wake up entirely Modernist. You know, you can now ask many faithful, many priests in France, "Do you still believe in Purgatory, do you still believe in the angels, in Hell?" Oh no, all those things belong to the past. Do you still believe in original sin? Original sin—this is what they wrote in this recent French catechism—is a fairy tale which was put together by sages at the time of Solomon. So if that's original sin, then there's nothing left of the Catholic religion. Why did Our Lord come, if original sin doesn't exist? It no longer makes any sense. There's no longer any sense in the whole Catholic Church. You have no idea of the depth of the errors in which people now find themselves. And so we protest. There will be at least two bishops who protest. We hope we are speaking clearly, respectfully, but firmly.
Question: Monseigneur, can this Manifesto be considered your will and personal testament?
Archbishop Lefebvre: Oh no. Of course, I can very well die quite soon. That's entirely possible. But it's still not a testament. Exactly the same day nine years ago on the 21st of November, I drew up a manifesto which also brought down on me the persecution of Rome, in which I said I can't accept Modernist Rome. I accept the Rome of all time with its doctrine and with its Faith. That is the Rome we are following, but the Modernist Rome which is changing religion—I refuse it and I reject it. And that is the Rome which was introduced into the Council and which is in the process of destroying the Church. I refuse that Church. Well, today, I am continuing quite simply, so it's not a testament, it's the Truth.
Question: Monseigneur, we know of your difficulties with Pope Paul VI, but we find it much more difficult to understand that you have not been able to reach any agreement with such a Pope as John Paul II.
Archbishop Lefebvre: Well, that's a mistake. Pope John Paul II is as inclined to reform as Pope Paul VI was. Pope John Paul II has not condemned Communism. He tries to come to an understanding with Communism. I am convinced that Pope John Paul II would be in agreement with a Christian Socialism, a Christian-flavored Communism. Communism needs to be improved on. After all, why can't we come to an understanding with Communism? It is Pope John Paul II who is changing the bishops to replace them with collaborating bishops, bishops of the Pax Movement, a movement of the "priests of peace." It is they who are now being named cardinals and bishops in the countries behind the Iron Curtain and these cardinals, these bishops persecute the good priests, whereas before these priests used to be encouraged by their bishops in order to resist Communism. Bishops are now being imprisoned and many have died in Communist jails. Now it is the very bishops themselves who are turning into the instruments of the Communist governments in order to persecute the priests doing their duty.
Question: So it's the Devil, not the Holy Spirit, who has been at work in the last few conclaves?
Archbishop Lefebvre: In any case the role being played by the Pope today is not truly the role that he ought to play. That is certain. He is not fulfilling his duty in the face of Communism. Look also at the "affair" that he is having with the Protestants. It's unheard of! He sent twenty official delegates to the Vancouver Congress of the Ecumenical Council of Churches. Those are the ones who have most worked with Protestants. After all, must we become Protestants? I had already written during the Council an article called "Must We Become Protestants in Order to Remain Good Catholics?" I already did that during the Council. It's going on. There is no change in this area. And then thirdly, Religious Liberty, the Rights of Man—it's always this humanism with which the Pope is infested. That is what pleases the Freemasons and the Protestants.
Question: However, John Paul II is a true pope?
Archbishop Lefebvre: I think so. I have always thought so, but he is a Pope who is not doing his duty. I would say so to himself if he were here. I am not afraid to say so to him. It's not my fault. Never before has one seen the Church not condemning Communism. Never before has one seen the Church agreeing with Communism to nominate collaborating bishops. Never before has the Church been seen united with Protestants to make a Catholic or Protestant liturgy and so on and so on.
Question: Then Monseigneur, if the situation is a deadlock, how do you see the future, notably the future of your communities and of your young priests?
Archbishop Lefebvre: That poses no problems for us. We have vocations in our seminaries. They are asking for us throughout the world. Communities of faithful Catholics who still wish to save their souls and who wish to continue the Catholic Church, so in that respect we have no difficulties. We have no problems within. But of course, as far as Rome is concerned, I do not know. I admit that the situation looks very dark because Rome is occupied by Modernists.
Question: The two signatures on the Manifesto—yourself and Msgr. de Castro-Mayer—are nevertheless rather closer to eternity than they are to today. So what's going to happen afterwards? How are you going to insure the continuation of your communities when there are no longer any bishops?
Archbishop Lefebvre: So you are asking the question for which maybe you all came, thinking that I was going to announce that I was going to make some bishops (laughter)?
Question: Monseigneur, why don't you make some bishops?
Archbishop Lefebvre: Because I still think that in appearance it would be an act of rupture with Rome which would be grave. I say, mark you, in appearance, because I think that before God, it is possible that this act may be an act necessary for the history of the Church, for the continuation of the Church, for the continuation of the Catholic priesthood, and so I am not saying that one day I won't do it. But it would be in circumstances still more tragic than today. Besides, as long as the Good Lord leaves me still a little health, I am still here, I prefer not to put the Society of St. Pius X into an even more difficult situation with regard to Rome. I still live in hope that, after all, Rome will one day open its eyes. Otherwise the Good Lord Himself must intervene with events of which we have no knowledge.
Question: So you are not absolutely refusing to consecrate a bishop?
Archbishop Lefebvre: No, I am not absolutely refusing. No, because if there is any role which is important for the bishop, it is that of handing on Tradition, of handing on the Gospel, of handing on the Faith.
Question: But in communion with other bishops, surely, Monseigneur.
Archbishop Lefebvre: Yes, but supposing these bishops no longer have the Faith? I wish it could be in communion with them. I have no desire at all to consecrate bishops, but if the bishops no longer have the Faith and I assure you that one may well ask how many bishops do still have the Faith, the true Catholic Faith. It is enough to see what has become of their seminaries. It is unheard of!
Question: Monseigneur, isn't this Manifesto also a little jab of the spurs to stimulate a movement that is beginning to slow down? Isn't it the opportunity to exert pressure with regard to your movement, in any case the communities connected with you and which have lost a little of their importance, or of the crowds which were following them?
Archbishop Lefebvre: No, not at all. I assure you that is not at all my intention, not the least in the world. I am not seeking publicity, and I don't think that we have habitually sought publicity. I think this act is sufficiently important once more in the history of the Church for me to ask for your cooperation in making known this appeal to the Holy Father and in reassuring Christians they are not alone, they are not abandoned; there are two bishops who are speaking for them.
Question: Isn't this act an ultimatum to Rome just before you consecrate bishops? Aren't you wishing to say to the Holy Father: "I am beginning to get on a bit in years, I'm getting a bit tired?"
Archbishop Lefebvre: That may be, but I don't yet know. I haven't thought out a method, but very possibly I will ask the Holy Father for an audience. If it is granted me, I might say to the Pope, "Listen. The situation is such that I believe in conscience I must consecrate a bishop; grant me the authorization. If you do not give it to me in the present situation, you oblige me to go ahead nevertheless."
[Emphasis - The Catacombs]
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| Archbishop Lefebvre: Spiritual Journey - The Sacraments of Jesus Christ |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-14-2020, 10:58 AM - Forum: Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
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Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre: Spiritual Journey
Chapter VII - The Sacraments of Jesus Christ
The Word of God was made flesh on account of the sin of man, to make reparation for it and to bring about a rebirth of divine life in souls, so that they might again become acceptable to God and glorify Him in this world and for eternity.
Thus Jesus, in His merciful love, chose to assume in a certain way the sins of humanity and to offer Himself as a sacrifice of redemption and of propitiation to His Father in order to restore the life of the Holy Ghost, the life of charity, in souls through a participation in His own life, which has become the sole source of life and salvation for men.
The Sacrifice of Calvary appears, then, as the Light which shines in the darkness, as the only fountain of life in the middle of the desert. By what means does God communicate this new life to us? It is by perpetuating Calvary. There will never be but one Sacrifice of the Cross, but one Victim, but one Priest: it is Jesus Himself.
We will never be able to insist enough on this marvelous invention of Divine Mercy, which sheds light on everything ordered by Divine Providence in the establishment of the Church, the Priesthood, and the Sacraments, of which the Eucharist, fruit of the Sacrifice and source of our sanctification, is the center and, in a certain way, the raison d’être. Which is the greatest and the most important of all these sacraments, and the one to which the rest are directed and whereby they are in some sort perfected?
It is the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. For in this Sacrament, our Lord Himself is present substantially, whereas in all the other sacraments there is only a power or a virtue which comes from Him. Further, all the other sacraments would seem to be directed to the Holy Eucharist, as Holy Orders which effect the sacrament; or as Baptism, Confirmation, Penance, and Extreme Unction, which make one worthy or more worthy to receive the Holy Eucharist; or as Marriage which signifies it, in so far as it is a union.(Pegues, pp. 247-8, III, Q. 65, Art. 3)
Would that we were able to give to the Mystery of the Cross its full value, its full place in the divine plan of the Redemption and in its application to souls throughout the history of the Church!
We must recognize that proper place is not always given, even in the teaching of the Church, in catechisms, to the Sacrifice of the Cross perpetuated on our altars. There is a tendency to give all recognition to the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist and to make but an accidental allusion to the sacrifice. [color#71101d]This is a great danger for the faith of the laity[/color], especially in face of the violent attacks of the Protestants against the Holy Sacrifice. The devil is not mistaken when he is out to make the Sacrifice disappear. He knows that he is attacking the work of Our Lord at its vital center, and that any lack of esteem for this sacrifice brings about the ruin of all Catholicism in every domain.
The devil’s action since Vatican II is very revealing. It obliges those who wish to remain Catholic to courageously defend the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Priesthood as Our Lord instituted them.
It is essential for the spiritual life of priests as for that of the faithful to clarify our faith and our knowledge of the act, willed by Divine Wisdom, which has spiritually and supernaturally revived humanity.[/b] This act is the reason behind the Incarnation. It is the accomplishment of the Redemption. It is the act which glorifies God infinitely and opens the gates of heaven for sinful humanity. It is the Sacrifice of Calvary.
One cannot but be struck by the insistence of Our Lord during His entire earthly life on His “hour.” “Desiderio desideravi —greatly have I desired,” said Our Lord: Greatly have I desired this hour of My immolation. Jesus is stretched forward, as it were, towards His Cross.
The Mysterium Christiis, above all, the Mysterium Crucis —the mystery of the Cross. That is why, in the designs of the infinite Wisdom of God for the accomplishment of the Redemption, for the Re-creation and Renovation of humanity, Jesus’ Cross is the perfect, total, final, and eternal solution. It is by His Cross that all will be resolved. It is with respect to the relation each soul has with Jesus Crucified that the judgment of God will be delivered. If the soul is in a living relation with Jesus Crucified, then it prepares itself for eternal life and already participates in Jesus’ glory by the presence of the Holy Ghost in it. It is the very life of the Mystical Body of Jesus: “If anyone abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up, and cast him into the fire, and he burneth” (Jn. 15:6).
For our justification, for our sanctification, Jesus organizes everything around this fountain of life which is His Sacrifice of Calvary. He founded the Church, He transmits His Priesthood, He instituted the sacraments to share with souls the infinite merits of Calvary. St. Paul does not hesitate to say: “For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (I Cor. 2:2).
This Sacrifice of Calvary becomes on our altars the Sacrifice of the Mass, which at the same time as it continues the Sacrifice of the Cross brings about the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, which makes us participants in the divine Victim, Jesus Crucified.It is therefore around the Sacrifice of the Mass that the Church, the Mystical Body of Our Lord, is organized. It is around the Sacrifice of the Mass that the Priesthood lives, in order to build up this Mystical Body by the preaching which attracts souls to purify themselves in the water of Baptism so as to be worthy to participate in the Eucharistic Sacrifice of Jesus, in the consuming of the divine Victim, and so as to unite themselves more and more to the Holy Trinity, beginning celestial and eternal life already here below.
It is also from the Cross that the grace of matrimony, received at the Sacrifice of the Mass, builds up Christendom, the social reign of Jesus Crucified, in families and in society. Christendom is society living in the shadow of the Cross, in the shadow of the parish church constructed in the form of a cross, surmounted by the cross, sheltering the altar where Calvary is renewed daily, in which souls come to receive and feed the life of grace by the ministry of priests, who are “other Christs.”
Christendom consists of this village, of those villages, cities, and countries which, following Christ on the Cross, accomplish the law of love under the influence of the Christian life of grace. Christendom is the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.The authorities of this Christendom call themselves “lieutenants of Jesus Christ,” for they simply stand in His place and are thus charged with the application of His law, with protecting faith in Jesus Christ and with aiding its extension by all means possible, in full accord with the Church.
One can say in truth that the blessings of Christendom come from the Cross of Jesus and from Jesus Crucified. It is the resurrection of a fallen humanity thanks to the power of the blood of Jesus Christ. This marvelous program, put together by the eternal Wisdom of God, could not be realized without the Priesthood, whose particular grace is to perpetuate the unique Sacrifice of Calvary, source of life, of redemption, of sanctification, and of glorification.
The radiance of priestly grace is the radiance of the Cross. The priest is at the heart of the renovation merited by Our Lord. His influence is the determining factor on souls and for society. A priest enlightened by faith and filled with the virtues and gifts of the Spirit of Jesus can convert numerous souls to Jesus Christ, raise up vocations, and transform a pagan society into a Christian society.
Clearly, the role of the bishop—who is priest in the full sense of the term—is considerable. His function is the multiplication of true priests, the encouragement of religious vocations, the building up of Christian institutions, for the vitality of Christendom and the growth of Our Lord’s universal reign.
The bishops are responsible for keeping an unfailing, uncompromising faith in the virtue of the Cross of Jesus, unique source of salvation. They must not turn, as does the world, towards the use of human means as a so-called more effective apostolate. This would be a sign of their loss of faith in Jesus Christ Crucified. It is precisely this which we have observed for many decades and which has led to the self-destruction of the Church, according to the word of Paul VI, himself a decisive collaborator in this self-destruction.
It is Israel abandoning Yahweh, the one, true God, to prevaricate with false gods from neighboring tribes, whose daughters they took for wives and whose gods they adopted. Israel ended up by being guilty of deicide. But its glory would come from a virgin of the tribe of Judah, predestined to be the Mother of God and the Mother of the New Israel.
Thus, in spite of the promises of Our Lord, which in truth do not cease to be fulfilled, the majority of Church authorities prevaricate with false modern gods by ecumenism! These false, modern gods are not only those worshipped by false religions, but also the false deified ideologies: the goddess Reason, the goddess Liberty, and the goddesses Democracy, Socialism, and Communism.
God, Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church, the Holy Sacrifice of the Cross and of the Mass, and the true Catholic Priesthood are not ecumenical because they proclaim a Credo and practice an anti-ecumenical Law: they work towards the universal reign of the King of Kings: Jesus Christ Crucified: “One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism” (Eph. 4:5).
Along these lines, since we have touched on the meaning of the sacraments, it seems an opportune time to return to the importance given to Baptism of water and of the Spirit by Our Lord. It is by this Baptism that Our Lord intends to constitute the new people of God, destined for the promised land, for eternal life.
The fact that He wished to be baptized by St. John the Baptist, and that all the significance of Baptism by water and by the Spirit was then manifested in a marvelous fashion, is of paramount importance for the work of the Redemption.
During His baptism, the whole Trinity deigned to make Itself manifested—[the Second Person] in His human nature, the Holy Ghost under the form of a dove, and the Father in the voice that was heard—in order to make known what would be the form of the Sacrament. He also made known the effect of this new baptism by the fact that the heavens were opened above His head; this was to show that by His baptism the gates of heaven were opened for men, in virtue of the baptism of blood where He washed away in His own person the sins of the world. (III, Q. 39, Arts. 1-8)
Thus the universality of the power of the Cross is manifested. By the character imprinted on the soul, the soul becomes able to participate in the Church, in the effects of Our Lord’s priesthood. But it cannot exercise the hierarchical acts of this priesthood.
Those who have received the grace of Baptism and who carry forever its indelible character, insofar as they are faithful to its grace, surpass in dignity and in excellence all creatures, considered in their own nature.
Our Lord wanted us to learn of His conversation with Nicodemus in St. John’s Gospel. His words were clear: “Amen, amen, I say to thee, unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God....unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (Jn. 3:3-5).
It is also the command that Our Lord gives in a solemn manner when, before ascending to heaven, He sends the apostles on mission: “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost” (Mt. 28:18).
It is this valid baptism of water which confers the sacramental character and constitutes a person as a full member of the Church, with rights and duties; and this even if baptism does not confer sanctifying grace, that is, even if it is not fruitful. This is the case with Protestants when their baptism is valid. Not having the true faith, they cannot receive grace, and yet they do receive the sacramental character, from which they can receive grace if they foreswear their heresies.
There is in the Church a teaching filled with errors, if not heresies, on the subject of the sacraments and especially of Baptism. It is very important to remember the doctrine of the Church on this subject. The new Rite of Baptism has been influenced by these errors, especially in what concerns the effects of Baptism. The true doctrine concerning Baptism corresponds well to the missionary spirit Our Lord inspired in His apostles. The visible outpouring of the Holy Ghost on the baptized at the beginning of the preaching of the Gospel confirms the capital importance of Baptism. Still today, in pagan regions, missionaries recognize the baptized by their faces—faces which are open, relaxed, trusting—while the pagans breathe fear, servility, and distrust.
Henceforward, the blood of Jesus, in which Christians have been baptized, calls them to unite themselves to Jesus’ Sacrifice every Sunday and thus to accomplish the most important act of the virtue of religion in union with Our Lord and all His Mystical Body for the glory of the Holy Trinity.
Before closing these meditations on the Holy Mass and the sacraments, it seems useful to consider especially the sacrament of Penance, which in numerous circumstances occupies a great part of the time that the priest consecrates to the apostolate. Given the weakness of souls and the scandals of a corrupt society in the midst of which they live, falls are frequent. Our Lord, in His infinite wisdom, instituted “a second plank of salvation” for us to hold on to.
The Fundamental Principle of the Spiritual Combat
The Wounds in Our Soul after Baptism
The acquisition of that holiness which is necessary for the salvation of our souls is not a simple thing. In effect, our daily experience and the teaching of the Church inform us that the grace of Baptism, although it gives us sanctifying grace by the outpouring of the Holy Ghost and frees us from original sin and from the control of the devil, does not free us from all the consequences of original sin. These consequences explain why our spiritual life takes on the bearing of a spiritual battle lasting throughout all our lives here below.
This teaching is fundamental and governs all of our apostolate. We remain sick and in need of the Doctor of our souls and of the spiritual helps He has provided for. Here is the teaching of the Church, expressed by St. Thomas Aquinas (I-II, Q. 85, Art. 3; Father Pegues, Catechism of the Summa, p. 128 [Fr. ed.]):
Quote:Original sanctity was lost by the sin of the first man. That is why all the powers of souls remain disordered, in a certain measure, with respect to their proper end, by which they were adapted to the practice of virtue. This absence of order is called the wounding of nature (vulneratio naturæ).
Insofar as reason is without its order to the truth, it is the wound of ignorance (vulnus ignorantiæ).
Insofar as the will is without its order to good, it is the wound of malice (vulnus malitiæ).
Insofar as fortitude is without its order to the accomplishing of difficult things, it is the wound of weakness (vulnus infirmitatis).
Insofar as fleshly desires are without the government of reason in that which is pleasurable, it is the wound of concupiscence (vulnus concupiscentiæ).
In his First Epistle, St. John confirms this truth: “All that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh and the concupiscence of the eyes and the pride of life” (I Jn. 2:16).
These four wounds undermine the four cardinal virtues and thus provoke in us a continual disorder. The most devastating seems to be that of ignorance or blindness, that is to say ignoring God and Our Lord Jesus Christ. For it is in this knowledge that eternal life resides: “Now this is eternal life: That they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent” (Jn. 17:3).
How, in effect, can we render to God the love and the worship which are due to Him if we remain blind with respect to Him? The seminarians and priests will never be able to thank God enough for having led them to the seminary, where all studies teach them to know God and Our Lord, and where all life is directed to render to the Holy Trinity by the person of the Word Incarnate the honor, worship, and love which are due Him, “per Christum Dominum nostrum.”
May priestly souls enter courageously into the spiritual combat to heal their souls of these wounds and thus learn to become doctors of souls by their preaching, by the prayer of the Holy Mass, by the Eucharist, and by the sacrament of Penance. Retreats are a powerful means for diminishing the blindness of souls and for healing the other wounds.
Without knowledge of these elementary truths, one cannot comprehend the Catholic spirituality of the Cross, of sacrifice, of despising temporal goods so as to be attached to eternal goods.
The demons use all that appeals to the senses and is delectable to deepen our wounds. What happened to Eve continues to happen now. Having listened to the word of the devil, Eve saw that the fruit was delectable—pulchrum visu et delectabile (Gen. 3:6). She would say to God, but, alas, too late: “The serpent deceived me” (Gen. 3:13). Hence the insistence of the Church, in all its spirituality, and especially for priestly souls or those consecrated to God, on distancing oneself from the world and its spirit so as to seek nothing but eternal things, following Jesus and Jesus Crucified.
But it is yet another of the disastrous consequences of the Council that this traditional and Catholic spirituality, a spirituality of self-denial, of the cross, of contempt for temporal things, of being invited to carry one’s cross following Our Lord, is destroyed. The alternative proposed is the search for social justice based on envy and the desire of the goods of this world. Thus whole populations are thrown into a fratricidal struggle, and the poor increase in number. On the contrary, it is the true Catholic spirituality which will change hearts and bring about a turn towards greater social justice.
This bad spirit of the Council—the spirit of the world—has invaded priestly and religious life and has led to a destruction without precedent of the priesthood and of religious life. The great triumph of Satan is to have accomplished by men of the Church the destruction which no persecution has ever produced.
The priest has received the power to apply the merits of the Cross and of the Blood of Jesus to souls who confess their sins with contrition and make satisfaction for the punishment due for sins already pardoned. The fruitful exercise of this ministry requires of the priest numerous qualities: knowledge of the divine law and of the laws of the Church so as to judge the gravity of the sin confessed; prudence, discretion, counsel, merciful charity following the example of Our Lord, in order to bring appropriate help to the sick soul. Souls generally are more appreciative of sweet firmness than of liberal laxity; they yearn to be healed, even if this desire is not explicit.
Contrition being essential to the reception of the sacrament of Penance, it is often useful to insist on this disposition, as also on firm resolutions. To be effective, contrition must be interior and habitual. This profound sentiment of regret for sin, if it persists, shelters the soul from further sin, maintaining it in humility, self-distrust, and in a state of continual vigilance. This is indeed the advice constantly repeated by Our Lord: “Vigilate—Watch!”
Satisfaction is, of course, accomplished by the prayers or actions imposed by the confessor, but it should also be continuous; in our daily prayers, in sacrifices and self-denial, in fasting and almsgiving. In the context of that satisfaction which is applied by indulgences, the reality of the Mystical Body appears in all its effectiveness. Without doubt, in the course of history, indulgences were abused for financial gain. But these simoniacal abuses, although condemnable, do not obliterate the priceless reality. Indulgences do help us to pay back in satisfaction for the debt which we still have with respect to God before the particular judgment at the hour of our death.
In this apostolate we should act in such a way, publicly and socially, that nobody would have any reluctance to ask for the sacrament of Penance; that is to say, we should always conduct ourselves in a truly priestly manner.
- Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Spiritual Journey. Kansas City: Missouri. Angelus Press. E-Book
[Emphasis - The Catacombs]
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| Archbishop Lefebvre: Where is the Schism? |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-14-2020, 10:42 AM - Forum: Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
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Taken from A Bishop Speaks:
Ecône, Switzerland
August 2, 1976
Where Is the Schism?
“Your Excellency, aren’t you heading towards schism?”
That is the question that very many Catholics are asking on reading about the latest sanctions adopted by Rome against us! Catholics for the most part define or imagine schism to mean a break with the pope. They don’t push their investigation any further. You are going to break with the pope or the pope is going to break with you, so you are heading towards schism.
Why does breaking with the pope cause a schism? Because where the pope is, there is the Catholic Church. In reality, it means separating oneself from the Catholic Church. But the Catholic Church is a mystical reality that exists not only in space, on the face of the earth, but also in time and eternity. For the pope to represent the Church and be its image, he must not only be united to it in space, but also in time, the Church being essentially a living tradition.
In the measure that the pope would distance himself from this tradition, he would become schismatic, he would break with the Church. Theologians like St. Robert Bellarmine, Cajetan, Cardinal Journet, and many others have studied this possibility. Thus it is not something inconceivable.
But what is of concern to us is the Vatican Council II and its reforms and official orientations, much more than the personal attitude of the Pope, which is more difficult to discover. The Council represents, as much to the eyes of the Roman authorities as to our own, a new Church, which in fact they themselves call the Conciliar Church.
We believe that we can affirm, by limiting ourselves to a critique of Vatican II, that is to say, by analyzing the documents and by studying the conduct of the Council, that, by turning its back on tradition and breaking with the Church’s past, it is a schismatic Council. A tree is judged by its fruits. At present, the mainstream press in Europe and America and even worldwide, recognizes that the Council is in the process of ruining the Catholic Church to such an extent that even unbelievers and secular States are worried.
A non-aggression pact was concluded between the Church and the Freemasons. That is the reality behind the words “aggiornamento–opening to the world,” and “ecumenism.”
Henceforth, the Church accepts being no longer the one true religion, the only way of eternal salvation. It recognizes the other religions as sister religions. It recognizes as a right derived from the nature of the human person that man is free to choose his religion, and consequently a Catholic State is no longer admissible.
Once this new principle is admitted, then all the doctrine of the Church must change: its worship, its priesthood, its institutions. For until now everything in the Church manifested that she alone possesses the Truth, the Way, and the Life in our Lord Jesus Christ, whom she possesses in person in the holy Eucharist present thanks to the continuation of His sacrifice. A complete overthrow of the entire tradition and teaching of the Church has been brought about since the Council by the Council. All those who co-operate in the implementation of this overthrow accept and adhere to this new “Conciliar Church,” as His Excellency Bishop Benelli designates it in the letter he addressed to me in the name of the Holy Father last June 25th, and enter into schism.
The adoption of liberal theses by a Council could not have occurred except in a non-infallible pastoral council, and cannot be explained without there having been a secret, detailed preparation which the historians will eventually uncover to the great stupefaction of Catholics who confuse the eternal Roman Catholic Church with the human Rome susceptible to infiltration by enemies robed in purple.
How could we, by a blind and servile obedience, go along with these schismatics who ask us to collaborate in their enterprise of demolishing the Church?
The authority delegated by our Lord to the pope, to the bishops, and to the priesthood in general is at the service of the faith in His divinity and the transmission of His own divine life. All the institutions, divine or ecclesiastical, are destined to serve this end. Each and every law has no other purpose. To make use of the Church’s law, institutions, and authority to destroy the Catholic Faith and to no longer transmit the life of grace is to practise spiritual abortion or contraception. Who will dare say that a Catholic worthy of the name can co-operate in a crime that is worse than physical abortion?
That is why we are submissive and ready to accept everything that is in conformity with our Catholic Faith such as it has been taught for two thousand years, but we reject everything that is against it.
The objection is made that we make ourselves the judge of the Catholic Faith. But is it not the gravest duty of every Catholic to judge the faith which is taught him by that which was taught and believed for twenty centuries and which is inscribed in the official catechisms, like that of Trent, of St. Pius X, and of every pre-Vatican II catechism? How have the true faithful always acted in the face of heresy? They have preferred to shed their blood rather than betray their faith.
No matter how exalted the dignity of the spokesmen of heresy may be, the problem for the salvation of our souls remains the same. And in connection with this, many Catholics are seriously ignorant about the nature and scope of the pope’s infallibility. Very many think that every word that comes from his mouth is infallible.
For the rest, it seems to us much more certain that the faith taught by the Church for twenty centuries cannot contain error than that it is absolutely certain that the Pope is pope. Heresy, schism, ipso facto excommunication, or the invalidity of the election are so many causes which, eventually, could make it such that a Pope was never pope or that he is so no longer. In such a case, obviously very exceptional, the Church would be in a situation similar to that which occurs after the death of a Sovereign Pontiff. For, ultimately, a serious problem has presented itself to the faith of all Catholics since the beginning of Pope Paul VI’s pontificate. How can a Pope who is a true successor to Peter, and hence is guaranteed the assistance of the Holy Ghost, preside over the most extensive devastation the Church has ever experienced in its history in such a short period of time, something no heresiarch has ever succeeded in doing? One day this question will have to be answered. But leaving this problem to theologians and historians, the reality constrains us to respond practically in accordance with the counsel given by St. Vincent of Lerins: Quote:What, therefore, will the Catholic Christian do if some members of the Church have broken away from the communion of universal faith? What else, but prefer the sanity of the body universal to the pestilence of the corrupt member? What if a new contagion strives to infect not only a small part but the whole of the Church? Then, he will endeavor to adhere to the antiquity which is evidently beyond the danger of being seduced by the deceit of some novelty.
We are resolved to continue our work for the restoration of the Catholic priesthood come what may, persuaded that we can provide no greater service to the Church, the Pope, the bishops, and the faithful. Let us be permitted to carry out the experiment of Tradition.
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, A Bishop Speaks, Kansas City, MO: Angelus Press. E-Book
[Emphasis - The Catacombs]
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