Letters to Friends and Benefactors - September 1981

[Stone]

Archbishop Lefebvre

Letters to Friends and Benefactors

September 1981

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

The ordinations of June 29 last brought the number of priests in the Society of St. Pius X up to 100. The first seminarian of the Society to be ordained priest, Father Paul Aulagnier, was ordained on October 17, 1971, ten years ago, in Econe’s local parish church at Riddes.

Naturally a mere one hundred is not very many to come to the help of all the Catholics who realise they have been led astray by their shepherds from the true Catholic Faith, especially if one reflects that such Catholics are to be found all over the world, in Poland as elsewhere, thanks to the propaganda of the Pax Movement, supported by both government and clergy. Alas ! How many Catholics have already lost the Faith, how many have joined the sects now spawning all over parts of the world where they were unknown twenty years ago!

Nonethess souls everywhere are regaining their balance, deepening their Catholic Faith, regrouping around the priests who are, in ever greater numbers, coming back to Catholic Tradition. Devotion to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, all night vigils of adoration, spiritual exercises, the recitation of the Rosary all are springing up again in chapels, well arranged and cared for, and in which the Faith finds expression in the beautiful altars and church furnishings, more often than not rescued from ransacked churches, in the crucifixes and statues, the Stations of the Cross given pride of place once more all of which favor genuine piety and raise souls up to God in this world of ours emptied of the sacred and given over to the profane.

From these groups are coming priestly and religious vocations, which are filling our seminaries and the monasteries and religious houses keeping the Catholic Faith. The whole Church is coming back to life in this way, especially in France, Switzerland, the U.S.A., and Germany; and now this re birth is spreading to the most far flung lands, to South America, South Africa, Kerala in Southern India, Australia, Japan.

The Catholic Church will not be occupied forever by the Modernists and progressives who are taking advantage of their authority to push through all these innovations destroying the Faith.

The innovations, as you well know, continue apace! Let me pick one out at random: the Second Vatican Council has henceforth authorised the cremation of corpses. Let us consult the Code of Canon Law containing the laws of the Church.

In Canon 1203 we read:

“There is an obligation to bury the corpses of the dead. The cremation of corpses is condemned. If anyone has in any way whatsoever given orders for his corpse to be cremated his wish may not be carried out. If this wish be signified in a will or similar document, no heed is to be taken of it.”

And, in Canon 1240:

“Ecclesiastical burial must be refused to those who have asked for their corpse to be cremated.”

All the commentaries give the same reason for this law; here, for example, is what Jone says:

“The reason for which the Catholic Church condemns the cremation of corpses lies first and foremost in the fact that the violent destruction of the human body is opposed to the respect due to the body which was the temple of the Holy Ghost and which will rise again on the Last Day in glory.”

Is this reason any less valid today? And we could go through all these innovations in the same way, showing that they are causing the Catholic Faith to disappear.

Yet the only ones who are called “dissident,” “disobedient,” or “rebels,” are the ones who are keeping the Faith; while those who are destroying it are called “faithful,” “submissive,” and “obedient.” How much longer is this lie this massive imposture to last? Only God knows.

I travel at regular intervals down to Rome in the hope of putting an end to this lie, deadly for so many souls, but I rely upon God rather than upon men. Tomorrow fifty seminarians leave for Albano. Even without seeking to do so, they will give witness in Rome itself to the efficacy and holiness of Catholic Tradition.

Let us keep true to the Faith, and let us pray to Our Lady to come to our aid. We rely upon your prayers and generosity for our priestly work, so essential for the Church and the salvation of souls.

May Jesus, Mary and Joseph bless you.

+ Marcel Lefebvre
On the Feast of St. Matthew
21 September 1981

Source

[Emphasis - The Catacombs]