On the New Code of Canon Law: Bp. Fellay vs. Archbp. Lefebvre

[Stone]

Translated and adapted from here.

The New Canon Law code according to Archbishop Lefebvre and according to Bishop Fellay

On the occasion of the Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday in Ecône, Bishop Fellay delivered a sermon which seems to us particularly important in the current crisis of the FSSPX and especially in view of the next chapter. The site "La Porte Latine" retranscribed it and gave it this title oh so revealing "Necessary dependence on God and nature of obedience to the Roman authorities." We could not be clearer! But the obedience of which Bishop Fellay speaks is not in the clouds. For the superior of the SSPX, this obedience is embodied in obedience to the new code. And that's the key to his sermon. In this article, we give you some reflections of various reactions that we could find on this question (forum of Fidelity) and especially the words of Mgr Lefebvre about the new code. At the end of the article, you can read again the study that a priest had done on this new code in 2014. This study brings all the nuances on this serious question.

Excerpt from Bishop Fellay's sermon and key passage:

"We seek precisely the intention, why this law, and we know that the final intention, the one that dominates everything, is the salvation of souls.Why are there laws in the Church? and even all the laws in the Church for one thing, save, save souls. and of course that's the great principle, even in the new canon law, it is expressed this principle. But be careful because that it is true that this situation which lasts, and which lasts and which continues, can make bad habits take place. And so we must examine ourselves, we must be careful to put ourselves in this state of dependence of the good God, and also, whenever possible, authorities." (Bishop Fellay, Ecône Thursday-Saint 2018)


On the contrary, what Archbishop Lefebvre said in 1983 on the occasion of the promulgation of the new Code:

[Before one begins to read these great, clear words of the Archbishop, please keep in mind the praise his private theologian at the Second Vatican Council, Fr. Berto, said of him: "Archbishop Lefebvre is a theologian, and by far superior to his own theologian, and God grant that all the [Council] Fathers might be theologians to the same degree as he is! He has a perfectly sure and refined theological habitus, to which his very great devotion to the Holy See adds that connaturality that allows him, even before discursive thinking intervenes, to discern intuitively what is and what is not compatible with the prerogatives of the Rock of the Church." www.thecatacombs.org/thread/99/abl-private-theologian-vatican-ii


In 1983:
"I was reading the new Canon Law these days, which is explicit in the presentation of Canon Law: the new code is made for the purpose of conveying conciliar ecclesiology in a canonical language. does that mean that the new code is designed to put the conciliar ecclesiology into legal and canonical language, so they say a few lines later that this is a novelty. If there is a conciliar ecclesiology, what is it that ecclesiology, suddenly, in 1963 or 4, at the time when the Church was discussed, the Church is suddenly discovered at the Council? Did not the Church exist for 2000 years? Did she never define herself? Did she not know herself? ...  is unbelievable! And so the purpose of the new Canon Law is to pass the principles, the spirit - they even speak of the spirit of the Second Vatican Council."

In 1983:
Then, the new Canon Law professes above all collegiality, is it not, in the reports. Collegiality in the relations between churches, local churches and universal churches, and between authorities, between bishops and the pope. Well, in the new Law, there are two supreme powers of the Church. There is the power of the pope who has the supreme power, and then the pope with the bishops.


In 1983:
For lack of time, I am unfortunately limited to brief indications, but it is certain that the statements of the Council, like the practical guidelines for the ministry of the Church, find in the new Code, exact and punctual correspondences. I would only like to invite you to try to compare Lumen Gentium Chapter III with Book II of the Code. "


In 1983:
" Blind obedience is a contradiction and no one is exempt from responsibility for obeying men rather than God. It's too easy to say: - Me, I obey. If he is mistaken, well I am wrong with him ... But as said Mgr - I prefer to be wrong with the pope, than to be in the truth against the pope! ... So, we must translate this: - I prefer to be against Our Lord Jesus Christ with the Pope, rather than being with Our Lord Jesus Christ against the Pope! ... It's stupid! ... We are for Our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, in the As the pope is really the vicar of Christ and acts as vicar of Christ, and gives us the light of Christ, we are of course ready to close our eyes and follow him everywhere. But since this light is no longer that of Our Lord Jesus Christ,Everything is new, new code of canon law, new missal ... everything is new, new ecclesiology - it does not go anymore, that ... This resistance must be public if the evil is public and is an object of scandal, that's what Saint Thomas says."


In 1983:
"It is marked in the speech of the pope, in the constitution which presents the new code of canon law, It is itself who says these things." People of God, Communion, Service, Collegiality, Ecumenism. characteristics of the new ecclesiology of Vatican II, it is clear that it is the continuation of the work that was done by Vatican II in the liturgy, in the catechisms and in the Bible, the ecumenical Bible, the famous TOB, Ecumenical Translation of the Bible. So what do we need to think of this? Well, it's that this canon law is unacceptable. There is no new Ecclesiology in the Church. We are not going to give a new definition to the Church, if ... So we were wrong for 2000 years. The Church did not know what it was for 2000 years. Suddenly, it has become ecumenism, collegiate, communion. Communion of what, who, with whom, with what? "


In 1983:
"Take, for example, the fact that the new law no longer requires a mixed Protestant Catholic household to sign a pledge that children will be baptized Catholics is a serious breach of faith, a serious violation of the faith (.. Previously, the law required that there be a written undertaking by both spouses, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, to have the children baptized in the Catholic religion, otherwise the marriage could not take place. the Church. "


In 1983:
"Another thing that touches the faith in the new canon law is to be able to give this Eucharistic hospitality as they have called it in an improbable way, we can call here a sacrilege in the final, Eucharistic hospitality: A Protestant provided that he believes in the real presence according to the Catholic faith can receive Holy Communion.

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Study of Abbe Du Châtelet on the new code (published in 2014)

The new 1983 Code is the result of two sources: a legitimate evolution of the discipline and the innovative principles that were already being felt before the Second Vatican Council.

Evolution of discipline

In 1986, Father Coache, Doctor of Canon Law, published the results of his studies on Canon Law in two parts: Initiation to Canon Law, already published between 1958 and 1960, and Commentaries on the New Code (from 1983). ). These are the reasons why he thought it necessary to revise the 1917 Code:

"For it was necessary to update the canon law; it is obvious that the Church is alive and the discipline must change according to the times, places and evolution of humanity. (...) The Jesuit Father Regatillo published in 1953 a large book of 720 pages to interpret (after official answers from Rome), complete or correct a large number of guns since the publication of the Code. Annoting myself this book, from 1953 to 1965, I completed it on a large number of pages because of the new laws, various decrees and precisions of the Roman Congregations published during these twelve years. Pius XII, by himself, has largely advanced the law by his speeches and his decrees, in liturgical matters for example. It was therefore necessary that one day or another the Code be updated.

"Moreover, the Code of Canon Law, despite the excellence of the work accomplished under St. Pius X and Benedict XV and despite its remarkable qualities, is not perfect. It contains obscurities, some contradictions of detail, and, above all, a much too complex complexity, especially in view of the canonical impediments to marriage and ecclesiastical penalties; a simplification was therefore desirable "(Abbé Coache, Is the canon law amiable? pp. 218-219).

Innovative principles

The main reason for the recasting of the Code is to be found in the Second Vatican Council. We read indeed in the Apostolic Constitution promulgating the Codex Iuris Canonici of 1983:

"What constitutes the essential novelty of the Second Vatican Council in continuity with the legislative tradition of the Church, especially with regard to ecclesiology, is also the novelty of the new Code (§ 21). "

"Among the elements that characterize the real and authentic image of the Church, we must highlight the following:

"- the doctrine according to which the Church presents itself as the people of God (see Const. Lumen Gentium, 2) and the hierarchical authority as service (see ibid 3);

"- the doctrine which shows the Church as a communion and which, therefore, indicates what kinds of reciprocal relations must exist between the particular Church and the universal Church and between collegiality and primacy;

"- the doctrine according to which all the members of the people of God, each according to his modality, participate in the triple function of Christ: the priestly, the prophetic and the royal functions. To this doctrine is connected that concerning the duties and the rights of the faithful and in particular of the laity;

"And finally the commitment of the Church in ecumenism (§ 22). "

"It remains to be hoped that the new canon law will become an effective means for the Church to progress in the spirit of Vatican II (§ 27). "


Ecumenism

Outside the Church, means of salvation - According to the principles of Vatican II, there are, outside the Catholic Church, structures and means of salvific (see previous article).

"This Church, constituted and organized in this world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church governed by the successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion with him" (1983 Code, 204 § 2).


Now "this Church" is, according to the first paragraph of this canon 204, the people of God: "The faithful of Christ (...) are constituted as people of God". The faithful of Christ and therefore the Church of Christ would remain in the Catholic Church and would not be identical to it! This is one of the major mistakes of the Council.

As a result Protestants and Orthodox, as it is said in various parts of the Code (eg Can. 844 and 1124 mentioned below) would have no other reproach to be done than to be "in full communion" With the Catholic Church. If they are not in the Catholic Church, they would not be outside the Church of Christ. The reason for this is that "many elements of sanctification and truth remain outside its structures, elements which, properly owned by God's gift to the Church of Christ, call for Catholic unity by themselves" (Vatican II, Lumen Gentium 8). [See Fr. Hesse's comments about this section of Lumen Gentium here].

What remains of the dogma of faith: "Outside the Catholic Church no salvation"? What path can those who submit to this new law take?

[u]Around the sacraments [/u]

The Church, faithful to tradition, has always refused to give the sacraments to those who are not Catholics. They must first reject their mistakes: "It is forbidden to administer the sacraments of the Church to heretics and schismatics, even if they are in good faith and ask them, before, having rejected their errors, they are reconciled with the Church "(Code of 1917, 731).


Everything else is the spirit of the new Code: no prior rejection of schism or heresy is required. It is enough to hold true the doctrine of the Catholic Church concerning such sacraments and to be well disposed to it. But how can the doctrine of the Church be held true if we do not have the Catholic faith? How to be supernaturally well-disposed - what is necessary for salvation - without the foundation faith of all supernatural life? Moreover, to have "faith" only in these sacraments without believing all the truths which the Church teaches as revealed by God is to question and reject the authority of God who reveals these truths; it is to remain in the path of perdition. In addition, allowing the reception of the sacraments in these conditions opens the door to all sacrilege. Let's read: "In case of danger of death or if,

We must note the same breach of faith in the other direction: Catholics have every facility to receive the sacraments of non-Catholic ministers.

It is the ecumenism of the Second Vatican Council applied in the concrete of everyday life. All these official laws will lead little by little to the loss of faith. What a responsibility before God for those who promulgated them and for those who apply them!

On Marriage

The Church is attentive to the good of faith which is first; it passes before the good of marriage and founds it: "The Church," says the Code of 1917, "forbids everywhere very strictly a marriage to be concluded between two baptized persons, one of whom is a Catholic, the other enrolled in a heretical or schismatic sect "(mixed marriage). And pointing out the importance of faith for salvation, this canon continues: "If there is danger of perversion of the Catholic spouse and children, such a union is also prohibited by divine law itself" (Can. ). God forbids these marriages as soon as there is danger for the faith!

The new Code no longer knows this divine prohibition: mixed marriage is only "prohibited without the express permission of the competent authority". The reason is that the non-Catholic party is no longer a danger for the Catholic party, since it lacks only "full communion with the Catholic Church" (can 1124).

The Church, however, can give an exemption to this kind of union. The 1917 Code sets out precise and demanding conditions: "urgent", "just and serious" reasons are needed; the catholic spouse must give "the guarantee of averting the danger of perversion of the Catholic spouse" and the two spouses must give "that to baptize all their children and to assure them the only Catholic education"; in addition, there must be "the moral certainty that these guarantees will be executed"; these must be written (can 1061).

The new Code requires only promises from the Catholic side and still weakly:
"The Catholic party will declare that it is ready to ward off the dangers of abandoning the faith and sincerely promise to do its utmost (no more!) To that all children be baptized and educated in the Catholic Church ". The other party will only be "informed in time of these promises to be made by the Catholic party, so that it is established that it really knows the promise and obligation of the Catholic party"; nothing is required of her; for nothing, what will it impose? ... (can 1125).

This applies to weddings with disparity of worship (with a Muslim for example) (can 1129)!

When we measure the importance of the pure faith of any alloy for the education of the baptized within families, we discover how this new Code opposes the Catholic faith and the honor due to God. He hurls souls into the path of perdition ...

Democracy

At Vatican II, the innovators defined the Church as "people of God". This idea obsesses them if one judges by the insistence to consider each part of the Church like people of God: the diocese, the prelature (or the abbey) territorial, the vicariate (or the prelature) apostolic and the apostolic administration are each "a definite portion of the people of God" (1983 Code, 369-371).

The egalitarian and democratic spirit tends to diminish the difference between clerics and lay people, between pope and bishops, between bishops and priests, between men and women. The following will show it.

The Church is "people of God"  -  These are not just words.

- Powers are given to the people. Since the Church is a people of God, each member participates in the triple power given by Jesus Christ to the apostles (to teach, to baptize, to command): "The faithful of Christ are those who, as incorporated into Christ through baptism, are constituted as a people of God and who, for this reason, are participating in their own way in the priestly, prophetic and royal function of Christ, are called to exercise, each according to his own condition, the mission that God has entrusted to the Church for to do it in the world "(204 § 1).

In contradiction with all tradition, powers and mission are thus given first to the people and not first (and exclusively) to the hierarchy. It is not true that the faithful are in charge of exercising "the mission that God has entrusted to the Church" nor that they have received the powers to this end. Jesus Christ did not say to everyone but to the Apostles alone: "All power has been given to me on earth. Go, teach all the nations, baptize them ... and teach them to observe all that I have commanded you "(Mt 28:19).

Consequently, the hierarchy, placed in second rank, is diminished, obliterated. It is still shown as follows.

- The hierarchy comes from the people. Indeed, after the general norms, the Code begins a second book entitled "The people of God". This first deals with the faithful of Christ, their rights and obligations. It is only in the third part that he deals with clerics or sacred ministers. The 1917 Code orders things to take place: in the book "People", after the general rules concerning them, the Code deals first with clerics, then with religious, and lastly with laity. The new Code reverses the pyramid.

- Moreover, the clerics are taken "among the faithful", no doubt because of a "divine institution", but the first thing that remains is the equality between the two: "By divine institution, there is in the Church, among the faithful, the sacred ministers who in law are called clerics, and the others who are called laymen "(Can., 207).

In short, the faithful are constituted as a people of God, empowered and charged with mission (can., 204); clerics are taken from among the faithful (can. finally, because of baptism, there exists among all the faithful "as to dignity and activity, a true equality by virtue of which all cooperate in the edification of the Body of Christ, according to the proper condition and function of each person. (Can 208).

It is obvious that the whole law will be affected by this egalitarianism. This false spirit infects all the Code and vitiates it at the root.

This is why R. Paralieu can quietly write: "by treating, under the same title, Christians in general, the faithful and then the clergy, there is already in the new canon law a reversal of the ecclesiological perspectives" (Practical Guide of the Code of Canon Law, Tardy, 1985, 93).

And a serious thing for the life of the Church, this egalitarianism poses an obstacle to the passage of grace. Indeed, by the divine institution, grace passes through the hierarchy and descends to the faithful. If we overthrow the pyramid, where could grace pass? (Archbishop Lefebvre's conference in Ecône in 1986) Would not submitting to this Code be suicidal?


Rights of the faithful and dignity of man

- The rights of the faithful are very numerous as they should be in a democratic society: the right to missionary activity proper (canons 211 and 216); to give their opinion on the good of the Church (Can 212); to spiritual goods (213); to worship according to their rites and to follow their own form of spiritual life (Can. Christian education (Can., 217); to claim their rights before ecclesiastical authority (Canon 221); etc.

The laity have very extensive functions. Lay people are invited to acquire and teach the sacred sciences (229). They are admitted to the ministries of reader and acolyte, can "preside at liturgical prayers", baptize (can. 230) and attend weddings (can. 1112). They (women not excluded) can give communion or bring it to the sick (can., 230, 910 and 911). A layman can exhibit the Blessed Sacrament (can 943) and even be part of the ecclesiastical courts (can 1421) (even a woman, since the Code does not exclude it)! Lay people can preach (can., 230 and 766). This is the opposite of the old Code which forbade it (can 1342).

- The rights of the human person are part of the doctrine to be taught. The Church must teach the principles of morality and "make a judgment on every human reality to the extent that the fundamental rights of the human person or the salvation of souls require" (Can., 747). And the rights of God? The preachers of the divine word "will also communicate to the faithful the doctrine taught by the magisterium of the Church on the dignity and freedom of the human person" (Can., 768).


Collegiality

The Code reproduces the error of the Council on the double head (Pope and College) as the subject of the supreme power: "The College of Bishops, whose head is the Supreme Pontiff and whose Bishops are the members by virtue of the sacramental consecration and by the hierarchical communion between the chief and the members of the College, in which the apostolic body is perpetuated, is also in union with its head and never without him, subject of the supreme and full power over the whole Church "(can. 336).


Democracy in the Mass

Without resuming the contested definition of the new Mass, the new Code goes in the same democratic spirit: "In the Eucharistic Synaxis, the people of God are convened in assembly under the presidency of the Bishop or priest under the authority of the Bishop, acting in the person of Christ, and all the faithful who attend, clergy or laity, contribute to it by taking an active part, each according to his own mode ... "(Can 899 § 2).

Democracy in marriage

The new Code defines marriage as "a community of all life" ordered primarily "for the good of the spouses" and only "as well as for the generation and upbringing of children" (Canon 1055). The 1917 Code, precise, says: "The first end of marriage is the procreation and education of children; the secondary end is mutual help and the cure for concupiscence "(Can 1013).

By insisting more on the welfare of the spouses than on the generation, it is not difficult for this Code to affirm that the equality of the spouses extends to the whole community of married life: "Every spouse has equal duty and rights. with regard to the community of married life "(1135). This is not at all in keeping with the tradition expressed by the 1917 Code. The latter recognizes equality only with regard to conjugal acts: "An equal right and duty belong from the beginning of marriage to everyone. spouses with respect to the acts proper to conjugal life "(Canon 1111). For the rest the woman is subject to her husband: "Unless otherwise determined by a special right, the woman becomes a participant in the husband's state, for all canonical effects" (can 1112) .


As for the penalties

In this regard, Father Coache highlights the change of spirit of the new Code: the transition from the primacy of the object to the primacy of the subject.

"If the preceding law is much less broad than the new one, it must be said, remembered and emphasized that it is just as merciful; the difference comes from the method which seems to us really defective in the modern Right, and always because of the same spirit: lessening of the sense of the authority, the sin, constant need to defend the man against the law to pretend to safeguard his dignity . Traditional law establishes the law - and thus, in criminal law, criminal law - with clarity, objectivity; the law marks and specifies the sanctions for the committed crimes, explaining in a rather clear way what are the external causes which can excuse of the sentence (for example the age below puberty, drunkenness in some cases, the external violence ...) or even inner causes that are easily judgeable (eg. ignorance of the law or punishment); traditional law is therefore objective; but beside this he multiplies the rules, the principles and the counsels which lead to indulgence in the interpretation or the application of the law (eg canons 2218, 2219, 2223, etc.).

"On the contrary, the new Law, to free - wrongly - the subject of the law or intervention (even benevolent) of the Superior, multiplies the cases or situations where the offender is safe from punishment, but so subjective that the law can no longer be found there ("serious relative fear", "influence of a necessity", "serious inconvenience", "chance that one could not have foreseen" (sic) or still "belief that one of these circumstances presents itself"!); there is no more judgment possible; it is no longer law, it's romance or marshmallow! With such principles there are no more applicable sanctions; it is no longer goodness or mercy, nor even benevolence towards the culprit, but paradoxically mockery, if not complicity. (Abbot Coache, Is Canon Law Friendly?


Judgments

From Father Coache

"There is a New Canon Law as there is a New Religion, New Priests and a New Mass. This New Canon Law, published in 1983, is the emanation of the New Religion in what it has official; apparently he brakes or reproves the excesses of a whole post-conciliar spirit; however, it also crystallizes an entire spirit from the Second Vatican Council, gathering and codifying the authorizations, laws and decrees published since the Council. (Is Canon Law Friendly? 215)

"Does this new canon law oblige? Certainly not, by virtue of this principle, that error has no right and that it is better to obey God than men. A document like this, even if it is official, when it is tainted from one end to the other by a obviously false mind and by a certain number of laws which contradict Faith and Tradition, has no legal value.  It can not be a document of the Church since the Church can not be rediscovered in her eternal Truth; there is not there, in this judgment on our part, "free examination", but a simple statement of human reason; the leaders of the Church, the Pope himself, are bound by Faith and Tradition; if they derogate from it, they condemn themselves and their actions are worthless. This is a finding and a conclusion. Theologians will try to explain.


From Archbishop Lefebvre

"The new Code is designed to bring conciliar ecclesiology into legal and canonical language. (...)
"And so the purpose of the new Canon Law is to make (...) pass the spirit of Vatican Council II. And this spirit of the Second Vatican Council is dominated by this ecumenism, because the new ecclesiology is constructed, is forged on the Protestant ideas to avoid the objections of the Protestants. Protestants can not support the primacy of the pope, so we tried to drown the primacy of the pope, the superiority of the pope, in collegiality. And you now have two subjects of supreme power. Go and understand something ... How can there be two subjects of supreme power? ... "(Archbishop Lefebvre, Ecône, January 18, 1983)

"Then we will have to keep the old Canon Law, taking the fundamental principles and comparing it with the new Canon Law to judge the new Canon Law. Just as we take Tradition to judge also the new liturgical books. (Archbishop Lefebvre, Ecône, March 14, 1983)

"It is impossible for us to accept the Canon Law as it stands, because it is precisely in the line of Vatican II and in line with the reforms of Vatican II. The pope himself says so. He is in this new ecclesiology, which does not correspond to traditional ecclesiology and therefore indirectly affects our faith, and is likely to lead us, at least in a number of essential points of law, to heresies, favoring heresy. , like the liturgical reform that promotes heresy too. That is why we refuse liturgical reform too. (...) It's the same for catechisms, new catechisms. We refuse new catechisms because they diminish our faith. "

To base his judgment, Archbishop Lefebvre quotes Professor Michiels and concludes:
"The foundation of the supernatural life which is given over to the Church, entrusted to the Church, its foundation, is faith. Then one realizes that the duty of the Law will be to determine all that regards the faith. So the Law (...) will therefore make that faith be preached, explained, will show how it is to be received, by catechumens in particular, will determine the exercise of faith, the outward profession of faith, the defense of faith and his revenge, as it were, his defense against those who would attack the faith. All of this, the Law must do it, the Canons must express it. (Archbishop Lefebvre, Ecône, March 15, 1983)

Practical decisions within the Society of Saint Pius X (note: one year after the death of Archbishop Lefebvre!)

This new Code, to say the least doubtful, does not oblige. Thus, the 1917 Code is based on principles (doctrine and morals). However, in certain particular areas, such as canonical censorship and impediments to marriage, certain measures of the new Code are retained. They are retained, not because of their belonging to this Code which does not oblige, but for extrinsic reasons, as are a legitimate evolution of the discipline (pointed out by the abbot Coache) and the good of the souls.

Let us therefore be deeply attached to the law of God and not to the ravings of the innovators: "Blessed is the man who did not walk in the counsel of the wicked, who does not stand in the way of sinners and who does not sit in the pulpit, but whose will is in the law of God, and meditates day and night (Psalm 1).

Abbot Olivier du Châtelet