Archbishop Lefebvre and Conciliar Sacraments – Did he doubt them?
The Church cannot approve rites which are harmful or out of harmony with the faith.
This is precisely what Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre said of the conciliar rites. So how did he resolve the question?



Image: The Tomb of Pope Leo XIII (Fr Lawrence Lew OP) with superimposed image of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (Wiki Commons) both under CC 2.0.

Quote:“All these reforms, indeed, have contributed and are still contributing to the destruction of the Church, to the ruin of the priesthood, to the abolition of the Sacrifice of the Mass and of the sacraments…

“It is impossible to modify profoundly the lex orandi without modifying the lex credendi. To the Novus Ordo Missae correspond a new catechism, a new priesthood, new seminaries, a charismatic Pentecostal Church—all things opposed to orthodoxy and the perennial teaching of the Church.

“This Reformation, born of Liberalism and Modernism, is poisoned through and through; it derives from heresy and ends in heresy, even if all its acts are not formally heretical. It is therefore impossible for any conscientious and faithful Catholic to espouse this Reformation or to submit to it in any way whatsoever.

“The only attitude of faithfulness to the Church and Catholic doctrine, in view of our salvation, is a categorical refusal to accept this Reformation.”1

Quote:“The only formulae that infallibly and necessarily contain the essential significance of a sacrament are those which have been canonised by being instituted by Christ and His Church for that purpose.”2

Quote:“… f the rite be changed, with the manifest intention of introducing another rite not approved by the Church and of rejecting what the Church does, and what, by the institution of Christ, belongs to the nature of the Sacrament, then it is clear that not only is the necessary intention wanting to the Sacrament, but that the intention is adverse to and destructive of the Sacrament.”3

Quote:“… in adhering rigidly to the rite handed down to us we can always feel secure; whereas, if we omit or change anything, we may perhaps be abandoning just that element which is essential.”4

Quote:“Where, however, a new liturgical form is introduced and no such canonised formula [“instituted by Christ and His Church”] is employed, there cannot be certainty of its validity until its credentials have been established, and it has been acknowledged, expressly or implicitly, by the universal Church.”5

Quote:“Only the Church as a whole, the Mystical Body of Christ and the guardian of His sacraments, has the power to decide that with final certainty.”6

Quote:“It is at the request of the faithful, attached to Tradition, that I use the old sacramental formula, and also for safety's sake, keeping to formulas which have communicated grace for centuries with certainty.”7 (Emphasis added)

Vatican II and the Deformation of Catholic Consciences

Quote:“No. A man’s conscience is not always necessarily a true conscience. A man can warp his conscience. And just as he can form a wrong judgment in literature, science, economics, business, or sport, so he can form a wrong judgment as to what is correct moral conduct or evil moral conduct. A conscience is right when it is in harmony with God’s law. If it is not in harmony with God’s law, then it is an erroneous conscience. And we know by experience that men have often done evil under the impression that they were right. When conscience is in error, however, so that a man does wrong in good faith, we have to ask whether that man is responsible for his lack of knowledge or not. If he is responsible, because ignorant of things he ought to know or was obliged to know, he cannot be excused from sin.” (Volume 3, question 994)

Quote:“It was for great numbers of Catholics a shattering experience to learn that the bishops were divided — indeed, if the journalists were to be believed, bitterly divided. It was one thing to accept decisions issuing from the successors of the Apostles in all the majesty of their oneness. It was not at all the same thing when the decisions were arrived at by a majority, after — if the journalists were to be believed — lobbying and recriminations not unlike those of politicians anywhere.” (p. 63)

Quote:“The effect of all this is to make the old unquestioning acceptance a great deal harder, especially in a matter like Contraception which can affect people continually, immediately, sometimes agonizingly, as doctrinal teachings do not. Any who are not convinced by the Pope’s utterance on it may feel that their personal decision is for their own conscience to make. And while the Second Vatican Council speaks most lucidly upon the rights of men outside the Church to follow their conscience, I have not found that it discusses the relation of the Catholic conscience to her own teachings or commands if it feels them contrary to it.” (pp. 63-64)

Quote:“On his part, man perceives and acknowledges the imperatives of the divine law through the mediation of conscience. In all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience in order that he may come to God, the end and purpose of life. It follows that he is not to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his conscience. Nor, on the other hand, is he to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience, especially in matters religious.”

Quote:“The universal order created by God, whether natural or supernatural, is, in fact, in essential opposition to this statement. God founded the family, civil society, and above all the Church, in order that all men might recognize the truth, be forewarned against error, attain to good, be preserved from scandals and thus reach temporal and eternal happiness.” (Lefebvre, I Accuse the Council, pp. 19-20)

Quote:“This conception of religious liberty derives its origins and form from an opinion which is nowadays widespread among the public, an opinion founded on the primacy of conscience and freedom from all restraint. . . . Conscience cannot be defined without relation to Truth, ordained as it is essentially to that quality. . . . Conscience, liberty, human dignity, only possess rights to the extent to which they are in essential relation with the truth.” (Lefebvre, I Accuse the Council, pp. 24-26)

Quote:“This declaration on religious liberty should be shortened, as several Fathers have already said, in order to avoid the controversial questions and their dangerous consequences. . . . Among the various acts of conscience, the interior acts of religion must be distinguished from the exterior acts, for the external acts can either edify or cause scandal. . . . Attention must be paid to the very grave consequences of this declaration on the right to follow the voice of one’s conscience and act outwardly according to that voice. And, in fact, a religious doctrine logically influences the whole morality. Who can fail to see the innumerable consequences of this order of things? Who will be able to determine the dividing line between good and evil when the criterion of morals in accordance with the Catholic truth revealed by Christ has been set aside?” (Lefebvre, I Accuse the Council, pp. 47-48)

Quote:“Liberty is given to us for the spontaneous observance of divine law. Conscience is natural divine law inscribed in the heart and, after the grace of baptism, is supernatural divine law. . . . It is impossible to speak with veracity of liberty, of conscience, of the dignity of the human person except by reference to divine law. . . . As the Church of Christ alone possesses the fullness and perfection of divine law, natural and supernatural; as she alone has received the mission to teach this law and the means to observe it, it is in her that Jesus Christ, who is our law, is found in reality and truth.” (Lefebvre, I Accuse the Council, p. 64)

Quote:“For a notable number of Council Fathers the teaching and practical applications of the schema are not acceptable in conscience. In fact, the fundamental principle of the schema has remained unchanged despite amendments that have been introduced: that is, the right of error . . . Since the declaration on religious freedom has no dogmatic value, the negative votes of the Council Fathers will constitute a factor of great importance for the future studies of the declaration itself, and particularly for the interpretation to be placed upon it.” (pp. 310-311)

• As we can see from the interventions on the Declaration on Religious Liberty, bishops clashed over how the Council could contradict what the Church had always taught, throwing into question the reality that the Church is the divinely appointed truth-teller.
  
• The Council’s ecumenical push also confused Catholics with its undermining of the reality that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church — if that was no longer the case, why do Catholics have to follow difficult commandments that Protestants neglect?
  
• The debates over contraception added an emotionally-charged component to all of this, and effectively normalized the rejection of Catholic moral teaching. Once one could choose to follow an erroneous conscience over Church teaching in one matter, there was no real barrier to doing similarly on any other matter.
  
• Shortly after the Council, everything about the Church seemed to change: priests got married, nuns left religious practice, the Mass changed, and previously settled teachings were open to discussion. All of this undermined the belief that the Church is the guardian of the immutable truth that God requires us to follow.
  
• Over time, seminaries became increasingly corrupted, leading to poorly formed priests who became the heretical bishops we see today. Once we have openly heretical bishops, then many Catholics find it difficult to believe that they are required to obey the Church’s apparent hierarchy.
  

Quote:“As the Church of Christ alone possesses the fullness and perfection of divine law, natural and supernatural; as she alone has received the mission to teach this law and the means to observe it, it is in her that Jesus Christ, who is our law, is found in reality and truth.”

and that the Rosary can resolve any problem, no matter how difficult.



Wiki Commons

Quote:“[T]he devil is in the mood for engaging in a decisive battle against the Virgin. And a decisive battle is the final battle where one side will be victorious and the other side will suffer defeat. Also, from now on we must choose sides. Either we are for God or we are for the devil. There is no other possibility.”

Quote:“God is giving two last remedies to the world. These are the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. These are the last two remedies, which signifies that there will be no others.”

Quote:“[D]raw your strength from the Lord, from that mastery which his power supplies. You must wear all the weapons in God’s armoury, if you would find strength to resist the cunning of the devil.

“It is not against flesh and blood that we enter the lists; we have to do with princedoms and powers, with those who have mastery of the world in these dark days, with malign influences in an order higher than ours.

“Take up all God’s armour, then; so you will be able to stand your ground when the evil time comes, and be found still on your feet, when all the task is over.” (Eph 6:10-13)

Quote:“[I]n the plans of Divine Providence, God always, before He is about to chastise the world, exhausts all other remedies. Now, when He sees that the world pays no attention whatsoever, then as we say in our imperfect manner of speaking, He offers us with ‘certain fear’ the last means of salvation, His Most Holy Mother.”

Quote:“You have seen Hell — where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them God wants to establish throughout the world the devotion to My Immaculate Heart.

“If people will do what I tell you, many souls will be saved, and there will be peace. The war is going to end.

“But if they do not stop offending God, another and worse war will break out in the reign of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that it is the great sign that God gives you, that He is going to punish the world for its crimes by means of war, hunger, persecution of the Church and of the Holy Father.

“To forestall this, I shall come to ask for the Consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays.

“If they heed My requests, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace. If not, she shall spread her errors throughout the world, promoting wars and persecutions of the Church; the good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated; in the end, My Immaculate Heart shall triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, which will be converted, and a period of peace will be given to the world.”

Quote:“The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary. She has given this efficacy to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary we will save ourselves. We will sanctify ourselves. We will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.”

Quote:“… devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, our Most Holy Mother, consists in considering Her as the seat of mercy, of goodness and of pardon, and as the sure door by which we are to enter Heaven.”

• Going to Confession
  
• Receiving Holy Communion
  
• Praying at least five decades of the Rosary
  
• Meditating on one or mysteries of the Rosary for at least fifteen minutes.
  

• Offences against her Immaculate Conception
  
• Offences against her virginity
  
• Offences against her motherhood
  
• Offences against her sacred images
  
• And the offence caused by those who turn her children away from devotion to her.
  

Quote:“Because I want My whole Church to acknowledge that consecration as a triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary so that it may extend its cult later and put the devotion of the Immaculate Heart beside the devotion to My Sacred Heart.”

Quote:“[I]n the end, My Immaculate Heart shall triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, which will be converted, and a period of peace will be given to the world.”

Quote:“… the most Holy Virgin is very sad because no one has paid any attention to Her Message, neither the good nor the bad. The good continue on their way, but without giving any importance to Her Message. The bad, not seeing the punishment of God actually falling upon them, continue their life of sin without even caring about the Message. But believe me, Father, God will chastise the world and this will be in a terrible manner. The punishment from Heaven is imminent.”

Quote:“… we should not wait for an appeal to the world to come from Rome on the part of the Holy Father, to do penance. Nor should we wait for the call to penance to come from our bishops in our diocese, nor from the religious congregations. No! Our Lord has already very often used these means, and the world has not paid attention. That is why now, it is necessary for each one of us to begin to reform himself spiritually. Each person must not only save his own soul but also help to save all the souls that God has placed on our path.”

“The devil does all in his power to distract us and to take away from us the love for prayer; we shall be saved together or we shall be damned together.”

Viganò accuses Italian cardinal of connection to Freemasonry, says he ‘subjugated’ Benedict XVI
In a new interview given to Italian newspaper Il Messaggero, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò accuses Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone of being connected to Freemasonry and having 'subjugated' Benedict XVI.



Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò

Quote:I would like to tell you that I have been reflecting and praying about your condition after the latest events. The painful news of the death of His Excellency Msgr. Pietro Sambi has confirmed me in the conviction that your providential position at this time is the Nunciature in the United States of America. Furthermore, I am certain that your knowledge of this great country will help you to take on the demanding challenge of this work, which in many ways is decisive for the future of the universal Church.