The Dangers of the New Mass

[Stone]

Excerpts from Archbishop Lefebvre's 'Letters to Friends and Benefactors' - 1975-1983 that refer to the Dangers of  New Mass

Letters to Friends and Benefactors - September 1975

... For the problem of Ecône is the problem of thousands and millions of Christian consciences, distressed, divided and torn for the past ten years by the agonising dilemma: whether to obey and risk losing one’s faith, or disobey and keep one’s faith intact; whether to obey and join in the destruction of the Church, whether to accept the reformed Liberal Church, or to go on belonging to the Catholic Church.

... Defending his Faith is the prime duty of every Christian, all the more of every priest and bishop. Wherever an order carries with it a danger of corrupting Faith and morals, it becomes a grave duty not to obey it.

It is because we believe that our whole Faith is endangered by the post-Conciliar reforms and changes [including the New Mass] that it is our duty to disobey, and to maintain the traditions of our Faith. The greatest service we can render to the Catholic Church, to Peter’s successor, to the salvation of souls and of our own, is to say “No” to the reformed Liberal Church, because we believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God made Man, Who is neither Liberal nor reformable.



Letters to Friends and Benefactors - March 1976

... The balance-sheet for the ten years following the Council is catastrophic in all departments. Churchmen, herein following numerous bad examples, thought that they could replace what Our Lord instituted with institutions [including the New Mass] better suited to the modern world, forgetting that Jesus Christ is God “yesterday, today and for ever” (Heb. 13:8), and that His Work is suited to all times and to all men.

Saint Pius X condemned them in his masterly Encyclical Pascendi. Such innovators pervert the faith, bring supernatural means down to the level of man and destroy the hierarchical constitution of the Church.

For a long time now we have been warned by the Popes. Pius IX had the Documents of the Alta Vendita of the Carbonari published in which we read:

“In a hundred years’ time…bishops and priests will think they are marching behind the banner of the keys of Peter when in fact they will be following our flag.” (Masonic Infiltrations in the Church, Barbier.)

Fogazzaro at the beginning of the century, founder of the Modernist lodge of Milan, used to say: “The Reform will have to be brought about in the name of obedience.” (The Church under Occupation, Ploncard d’ Assac.)

Now, when we hear in Rome that he who was the heart and soul of the liturgical reform [Bugnini] is a Freemason, we may think that he is not the only one. The veil covering over the greatest hoax ever to have mystified the clergy and baffled the faithful is doubtless beginning to be torn asunder.

Now is the time then to hold more faithfully than ever to Tradition and the unchanging Church, and to pray to God, to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to St. Michael the Archangel to free the Church from the scandalous occupation of which She is victim.



Letters to Friends and Benefactors - October 1976

... In fact, these decisions [to submit to Rome] constrain us to submit ourselves to a new orientation in the Church, an orientation which is the result of an “historic compromise” between Truth and Error.

This “historic compromise” was brought about in the Church by the acceptance of Liberal ideas which were put into operation after the Council by the men of the Liberal Church who succeeded in taking the reins of power in the Church.

... It is in this betrayal of the Church that they would like us to collaborate by bringing us into line with this orientation which has so often been condemned by the Successors of Peter, and by preceding Councils.

We refuse this compromise in order to be faithful to our Faith, our Baptism, and our unique King, Our Lord Jesus Christ.




Letters to Friends and Benefactors - March 1977


...The Cross of Jesus summarises the whole of our faith and therefore the whole of our conduct, all of our attitudes, our interior and exterior life. It not only teaches us the truths necessary for our salvation, but also the way to salvation and the combat, which must be waged to achieve it. It shows the way to wage this combat against all that is opposed to our salvation, whether it be within or around us. The Cross is therefore the leaven and the law of Christian civilisation which is that of the salvation of souls by Jesus crucified.

To attempt to diminish in one way or another the teachings revealed by the Cross under the pretext of the historical development of society, of historical conscience, evolution, etc. is to close the way of salvation and deliver men up to other men, with no divine hope, light or life. It is to make this world the antechamber of hell.

This is what is being prepared for us by the elimination of any idea of combat against error due to religious liberty, or against atheism, laicism, and communism. Likewise by an ecumenism which delivers the Church into the hands of her enemies, and lack of opposition to sin by wiping out law in favor of conscience.

This new attitude of the Church authorities is a negation of the Cross of Our Lord. To ask us to follow this attitude, which lay under the surface during the Council, and which is clearly expressed in the reforms and practice of the Conciliar Church [including the New Mass], is as much as to ask us to deny Christ crucified. We cannot do so.



Letters to Friends and Benefactors - October 1977

... It is not surprising that, when authority fails or is used to annihilate that which it ought to be building up, the social body finds itself crippled [e.g. the bishops of the false Resistance promoting grace in the new Mass, that the New Mass and New Conciliar Church can nourish one's faith], and that the reaction takes place according to different criteria which can be somewhat divergent.

The important thing is to save the Catholic Faith inscribed in our catechisms, to save the means of living it by the grace of the [Traditional] Sacrifice of the Mass and of the [Traditional] Sacraments, to save the means of passing it on to future generations through Catholic schools and seminaries.



Letters to Friends and Benefactors - March 1978

Providence has allowed this painful crisis in the Church for our sanctification and in order to give more brightness to the pure gold of its doctrine and its means of redemption. This passion of the Church is a great mystery, for it reaches chiefly its hierarchy, its scholars, who seem to no longer know who they are and the reasons of their being appointed.

Satan, the father of lies, as Our Lord Jesus calls him, has the extraordinary talent of finding out some words, to which he assigns a new meaning so that from their ambiguity, he achieves acceptance of the destructive falsehood which overthrows the best established societies. He found it in this “ecumenism” of the Council which has created an ecumenical liturgy [New Mass], an ecumenical Bible, and ecumenical catechism, uniting truth and falsehood – marrying the true and the false.

The most disastrous result of this marriage is the Catholic-Protestant Mass, the poisoned source afterwards yielding countless ravages: relinquishment of the Church, of the true Faith, sacrileges, tearing of the unity of the Church, proliferation of diverse sorts of creeds unworthy of the Church.

But, there exists a consequence of which one does not often enough ponder on. It is the destruction of the Catholic nations which no longer find in the Holy Mass, the source of political unity based on the unity of the Catholic Faith. Therefore, the Catholic nation hereafter must, in like manner, convert itself to an ecumenical state – pluralistic, very soon finding itself securalized and neutral, if not atheistic.

The ecumencial Mass leads logically to apostasy. One cannot serve two masters, one cannot nourish oneself indifferently from truth or falsehood. It is falsehood that flatters our evil inclinations which will prevail over truth which is more austere and more demanding.

One must, at all costs, remain bound to truth without mingling. Pope Pius IX vigorously denounced these liberal Catholics who believe they can unite falsehood and truth, good and evil, in order to please their contemporary fellowmen.

Whether this poisoned ecumenism reaches us through the hierarchy or not, the channel is not important – it is the poison that one must refuse to swallow. It is a matter of strict obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ, to the Church of all times, to all the successors of Peter. We will, therefore, keep the Catholic liturgy, the Catholic Bible and catechism.

And it is for this reason that we must have Catholic priests and Catholic seminarians, Catholic monks nuns, active and contemplative. The Catholic Church will not perish!

Each one, at his time in the Church, must endeavour to remain Catholic and to maintain the Catholic Church. It is upon this resolution and its realisation that we will be judged by Our Divine Lord.



Letter to Friends and Benefactors - September 1978

...We tremble at the thought that the infiltration of modernism, that is to say naturalism, may continue in the Church. The consequences of this veritable cancer are the most serious that the Church has had to undergo during the course of her history; that is, the corruption of the Faith of numerous bishops and a great number of priests, monks and nuns. These clerics reason like the modernists and the protestants: witness the newly published book “Bishops Speak of the Faith of the Catholic Church.” The ideas of sanctifying grace, original sin, mortal sin and its consequences, of the expiatory Sacrifice of Our Lord which continues on our altars, are all spoiled. In their place one finds all the errors of liberalism, of Americanism, of Sillonism, and of modernism condemned by the Sovereign Pontiffs. Add to that the theology of liberation which is a Marxist interpretation of the Gospel—a sacrilegious and outrageous misinterpretation of Our Lord. Therefore, let us not be amazed that the patience of God is exhausted!

All seems to crumble around us because the foundation of all things has been abandoned; that is, the Way, the Truth and the Life—our beloved Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ. It is because of these reasons, these truths, that we wish to be so much more faithful to Our Lord, to His reign, to His cross, to His sacrifice, to His sacraments [the traditional Sacraments] and to His teachings which have been faithfully transmitted by the successors of Peter during close to twenty centuries.



Letters to Friends and Benefactors - March 1979

Extract from Archbishop Lefebvre's Letter of December 1978 to Pope John Paul II:

...The flood of changes in the Church, accepted and encouraged by the bishops, a flood devastating everything in its path – faith, morals, the institutions [including the Sacraments] of the Church – could tolerate no obstacle, no resistance.

We had, therefore, the choice either to let ourselves be swept away by this stream of havoc, thereby adding to the disaster, or to resist (against wind and tide) to safeguard our Catholic Faith and Catholic priesthood. We were not slow to decide.

...A solution cannot, in fact, be found in any compromise which would in practice cause our work to vanish, thereby adding yet another contribution to the destruction.



Letters to Friends and Benefactors - October 1979

...when one lives with an ecumenical Eucharist, democratic and liberal, the auto-destruction continues, despite all the calls to order, the statements most worthy of respect and the most spectacular of ceremonies.

“Nisi Dominus aedificaverit domum in vanum laboraverunt qui aedificant eam – If the Lord does not construct the building, the builders work in vain.” Therefore, the altar of sacrifice of propitiation, the heritage of the new and eternal testament; the Body and Blood of Jesus are the foundation stone of the Church from whence gush the waters of eternal life.



Letters to Friends and Benefactors - April 1980

... we must honor Jesus as God in all our Christian life, and thus, as the Church has always taught and practised, we must refuse to make Jesus equivalent to the founders of false religions, which would be blasphemous. We must refuse to compromise with those who deny the divinity of Our Lord, or with any false ecumenism. We must fight against atheism and laicism in order to help Our Lord to reign over families and over society. We must protect the worship of the Church, the Sacrifice of the Mass, and the sacraments instituted by Our Lord, practicing them according to the rites honored by twenty centuries of tradition. Thus we will properly honor Our Lord, and thus be assured of receiving His grace.

It is because the novelties which have invaded the Church since the Council diminish the adoration and the honor due to Our Lord, and implicitly throw doubt upon His divinity, that we refuse them. These novelties do not come from the Holy Ghost, nor from His Church, but from those who are imbued with the spirit of Modernism, and with all the errors which convey this spirit, condemned with so much courage and energy by St. Pius X. This holy Pope said to the bishops of France with regard to the Sillon movement: “The true friends of the people are neither revolutionaries nor innovators, but the men of tradition.”

If only the innovators of the Council and those since it would understand this language which is, after all, that of the Church since the time of St. Paul.

One cannot hope for a real renovation of the Church without a return to Tradition. The Church cannot content herself with doubtful sacraments nor with ambiguous teaching. Those who have introduced these doubts and this ambiguity are not disciples of the Church. Whatever their intentions may have been, they in fact worked against the Church. The disastrous results of their industry exceed the worst examinings, and are not lessened by the apparent exceptions of a few regions. When Luther introduced the vernacular into the liturgy, the crowds rushed into the churches. But later?

It is consoling to note that in the Catholic world, the sense of faith of the faithful rejects these novelties and attaches itself to Tradition. It is from this that the true renewal of the Church will come. And it is because these novelties were introduced by a clergy infected with Modernism, that the most urgent and necessary work in the Church is the formation of a profoundly Catholic clergy.



Letters to Friends and Benefactors - March 1981

Sadly recognising that the consequences of the Conciliar Revolution seems to be intent on becoming institutionalised and supplant the true Catholic institutions with the risk of arriving at the same results as in political society, which is sinking into a state of permanent revolution, our resolution to maintain and develop the divine institutions of the Church should be more firm than ever, for if political institutions can disappear, this can never happen to the Church.



Letters to Friends and Benefactors - September 1981

...  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 [traditional] 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.

... 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.

... Let us keep true to the Faith, and let us pray to Our Lady to come to our aid.



Letters to Friends and Benefactors - February 1982

...the [True]  Mass is indeed the banner of the Catholic Faith, because it makes open profession of all the fundamental dogmas of our Faith combined. In it are to be found all the treatises of Catholic theology.

And by this very fact, this “Mystery of our Faith” overwhelms all the errors of Protestantism, Islam, Judaism, Modernism, and materialistic, socialist and communist secularism. No error can withstand our holy Catholic Mass. The Mass is anti ecumenical, in the sense of ecumenism practiced since the Council: namely, the union of all religions in an amalgam of prayer without dogma, without morality, without specific laws, and agreement based on a few ambiguous slogans like “the rights of man,” “the dignity of man,” “religious liberty.”

On the contrary, the Novus Ordo is precisely the banner of this false ecumenism, representing the annihilation of the Catholic religion and the Catholic priesthood.

For the honor of Jesus Christ and for the honor of the Church, let us be faithful to the [True] Catholic Mass, symbol of our Faith, banner of our holy religion.

To continue this Catholic Mass we need priests, and so we need Catholic, and not Modernist seminaries, where, as always in the Church, young clerics can direct their formation and apostolate entirely towards the altar of divine Sacrifice.



Letters to Friends and Benefactors - March 1983

... We have been accused of disobedience, and dividing the Church. Now, not only the priests of Campos but also the Fraternity, and even the Universal Church, would be given the freedom to celebrate the old Mass provided that we recognize the new Mass as being legitimate and Catholic, and that we do not deter the faithful from participation.

This is obviously a new attitude, much more conciliatory, but with an added condition which the priests of the diocese of Campos have done well to reject. If we have to consider the new Mass as having the same titles as the old, why have we not adopted it and why continue to celebrate the old Mass? The reasons which have made us suffer a hard and unjust persecution would therefore be futile! A sentimental attachment to the past! [As we], on the other hand, do not cease to affirm: the new Mass has been made in collaboration with the Protestants in order to please them; it still has a Protestant definition and produces Protestants. These reasons are more than sufficient for not giving it the titles reserved to the Catholic Mass of all time in its various rites.