October 1981 Print

THAT THE CHURCH MAY GO ON
Part 2 – Conclusion

An Address Given by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
Rennes, France
November 1972

ANOTHER DOMAIN in which we must revive our Faith, the better to realize the gravity of the situation is the domain of the Church herself; for there is no longer faith in the Holy Church, it is being lost day by day. There is a desire to submit the Church to common law, to put her on the same footing and the same level as all other religions. Even among priests, seminarians and professors in seminaries, there is a reluctance to speak of the Catholic Church as the only Church, and to state that she has the truth, that she alone brings salvation to men through Jesus Christ. When you are virtuous, you have done with vice; insofar as you are in the truth, you forsake error, insofar as you are going to Heaven you avoid Hell. Do not let us come to say, then, that the Church is on the same footing as the religions which are in error: that is not possible. Well, now it is said openly: "The Church is now no more than a spiritual ferment in society, but equal with other religions; perhaps a little better than the others." The Church, then is merely useful. She is no longer necessary; and that is radically contrary to the very dogma of the Catholic Church. The Church is necessary; the Church is the one ark of salvation; we must state it. That has always been the adage of theology: "Outside the Church there is no salvation." Is that intolerance? No, it is the teaching of theology, it is the truth. This does not mean that none among other religions may be saved. But none is saved by his erroneous and false religion. If men are saved in Protestantism, Buddhism or Islam, they are saved by the Catholic Church, by the grace of Our Lord, by the prayers of those in the Church, by the Blood of Our Lord as individuals, perhaps through the practice of their religion, but not by their religion, since none can be saved by error. It is not possible. Error is contrary to truth, it is a break with the Holy Spirit. One cannot be saved by something which no longer possesses the Holy Spirit. One cannot be saved by a false religion. That has always been the Church's teaching. How many, then, have been saved? That is the great mystery of predestination, the great mystery of the Good God and His mercy, we do not know. One thing, however, is certain—that is that God has asked us to go and preach the Gospel. "He that believeth shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned." What intolerance!

Yet Our Lord did indeed say: "He that believeth not shall be damned." People must then be shown the light. If they are not told that they will be condemned if they will not believe, how can they wish to believe? Why, before the Council, were 170,000 Protestants in the United States and 80,000 in England yearly converted to Catholicism? Today there are very few. Why? Because the definition of the Church has been changed and the missionary spirit quenched. It cannot be said that all religions are of equal value. For, if all religions were of equal value, why should there be any evangelization? Why set off and cross the seas? Why go to Africa or India? There is no longer any need if people can be saved within their own religion. The missionary spirit is utterly quenched by this bad definition of the Church. Only in so far as one says: "Salvation comes only through the Church" (and this the Church has always proclaimed) is it worthwhile to cross the seas to save souls, to ask them to believe in Our Lord and so be saved. These souls are nevertheless subject to original sin and original sin has grave consequences. It seriously wounds our human nature, our soul. They are the four famous wounds of which St. Thomas speaks, the wounds of ignorance, malice, weakness and concupiscence which remain even in us here present, though we have been baptized. Those wounds are still within us and they need to be bound up and lessened that we may better live the life of Christ Jesus. I myself have spent thirty years in Africa. I have lived among these peoples and I can tell you that there exists among them for example one very grave thing—hatred. There are few of those people who do not hate someone. One village hates the neighboring village. Within the village one hates a particular family. Why? Because the villagers believe that in times past that family cast a spell on their own family and by reason of that spell one of their own family has died and that creates ill feeling. "Such and such a family cast a spell on yours," parents tell their children, "and because they cast that spell your grandfather died. Remember." Hence springs hatred, a profound hatred which may go as far as murder. Old family bitterness, old family rancour ... It is a mortal sin to nourish in one's heart the desire for murder.

God is indeed merciful. He understands that they live in an intricate and dramatic complex of life and society; all the same they may render themselves guilty of mortal sin, so we must go and carry the Gospel to these peoples. God asks it of us. "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." (Mark 15.16). Hence comes the gravity of this change in the definition of the Church.

I should like to speak also of the Constitution of the Church which has always been a constitution in which authority is personal. The Pope has his personal authority because he is Bishop of Rome, because, as Bishop of Rome, he is the successor of Peter on the Chair of Peter in Rome; he is thus the universal Pontiff, because he is Bishop of Rome. He must first be named Bishop of Rome, and when he takes his seat on the chair of Rome, he becomes his successor and—being the successor of Peter, he becomes the universal Pontiff. That is the tradition and truth taught by the Church; and that is why all the Cardinals who elect the Holy Father are parish priests of Rome and on the Roman churches you may see the coats of arms of one or another Cardinal. They are truly parish priests, under obligation to pay a pastoral visit to their churches when they visit Rome. And the Cardinals elect the Bishop of Rome who, because he becomes Bishop of Rome, becomes the Pope of the universal Church. It is thus personally that the Pope is elected! The Bishops then receive their consecration personally, through that consecration they receive a personal grace; priests too are personally consecrated. In the Church authority has always been given personally. Now there seems to be a growing desire to replace and submerge this authority in the authority of a college. This means that authority finds its hands tied.

The Pope feels that his hands are more or less tied by the Synod, the bishop feels his hands tied by his council of priests, the parish priest feels his hands tied because he must now consult his parishioners. It seems that if he gives directions personally he is guilty of an abuse of authority. It all ends by submerging personal in collective authority and this is entirely contrary to the whole Constitution of the Church established by Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Since I do not want to trespass on your patience I will now come to the crux, I should say the heart, of my lecture. I hope not to upset you, but I myself have so strong a conviction, so deep a persuasion that I cannot keep silence. Oh! I realize that I shall be told that I am against the Council. I am not against the Council, that is not true, but I could have wished that the Council bore more resemblance to its preparation.

I TOOK PART IN PREPARATIONS for the Council as a member of the Central Preparatory Commission. Thus, for two years, I was present at all its meetings. It was the business of the Central Commission to check and examine all the preparatory schemata issued by all the Committees. Consequently I was well placed for knowing what had been done, what remained to be examined and what was to be put forward during the Council.

This work was carried out very conscientiously and with a concern for perfection. I possess the seventy-two preparatory schemata and can state, speaking generally, in these seventy-two schemata the doctrine of the Church was absolutely orthodox and that there was hardly any need for retouching. There was, therefore, a fine piece of work for presentation to the Council—schemata in conformity with the Church's teaching, adapted to some extent to our era, but with prudence and wisdom.

Now you know what happened at the Council. A fortnight after its opening not one of the prepared schemata remained, not one! All had been turned down, all had been condemned to the wastepaper basket. Nothing remained, not a single sentence. All had been thrown out.

It was laid down in the Council's rules that a two-thirds majority was needed for the rejection of a preparatory schema. Now, in the sixth or seventh meeting of the Council a vote was taken on the preparatory schemata to decide on their study or rejection. Two-thirds of the votes were therefore needed for their rejection. As it happened, there were sixty percent against and forty percent in favor. The two-thirds majority was lacking so, under the rules of the Council, there should naturally have been a study of the schemata.

It should be said that there already existed at that time a powerful, extremely powerful body, well organized by the Cardinals from the Rhineland and their perfectly equipped secretariat. They brought pressure on Pope John, saying to him, "It is inadmissible to ask us to study schemata which did not carry a majority. They must be rejected outright." Pope John XXIII sent us word that given the fact that less than half the members of the meeting had voted for the schemata, all were rejected. After a fortnight we were left without any preparation. It was really inconceivable.

Which of you, gentlemen, if chairman of an administrative council, or taking part in a society, would consent to sit, lacking any preparation or agenda? This is how the Council began!

Then there was the matter of the Commissions, which were to become conciliar commissions. To begin with, there were the preconciliar commissions which had made the preparations for the Council, then the conciliar commissions had to be elected. Thereupon, a second drama! You can read about it in Father Wiltgen's book The Rhine Flows into the Tiber. Father Wiltgen was the Director of the Council's best press agency. His papers appeared in between eighty and eighty-five langauges, from which you will see that he was extremely well organised. He was clearly very well informed and wrote this book in which he speaks of "victories." He wanted plenty of personalities to interview. Everything was written up and sent out in all these languages—he is therefore an impartial witness. Later he wrote this extraordinary book which shows show a single organization took over the Council. What would you have me do? It is a fact of history and undeniable. As a result the Commissions which were to be set up got us into difficulties.

Picture the bishops arriving from their countries. They know one or two of their colleagues well. But how can bishops coming from all over the world and meeting in Rome know which of their colleagues assembled there are most fitted to be on the Commission for the Priesthood, on the one for Liturgy or for Canon Law. They are unknown to each other. Hence Cardinal Ottaviani quite properly circulated to all of them the list of members who had been on the preconciliar Commissions, people, that is, who had been chosen by the Holy See and who had already worked on the Commissions. It seems natural enough that some of them should be on the conciliar Commissions. There was an immediate uproar. I need not name the person who sounded the alarm and said: "To submit names is to exert intolerable pressure on the Council. The Council Fathers must be left free. Once again the Roman Curia is exerting pressure to get its members elected to the Committees." Somewhat taken aback by this revolt, the meeting was adjourned and, in the afternoon, the Secretary, Mgr. Felici informed us "Well, the Holy Father agrees that it may perhaps be preferable that the Episcopal Conferences should meet and furnish the lists." Now, Episcopal Conferences were in an embryonic state. They met to nominate members whom they considered particularly qualified to be on the Commissions. But the people behind this coup d'etat were prepared. They already had all their lists, all the Commissions prepared, and all the names chosen from the various countries, for they knew their men and they submitted their names to us there and then. It so happened that the Episcopal Conferences had not had time to meet, as it had to be done within twenty-four hours, and so they could not present names soon enough.

Obviously, the lists were accepted by a big majority. Hence, from the very beginning of the Council, we were confronted with Committees, two-thirds of whose members showed a very marked trend, the remaining third being nominated by the Holy Father. This became clearly apparent in the schemata reaching us, schemata wholly different in tendency from those of the preparatory Commissions.

Had I but time and opportunity. I should like to publish both texts the preparatory and those given us later. It is clear that their orientations differ greatly. Certain things dominated the Council and directed its course.

It must be admitted that the same thing happened where the four moderators, elected after the Presidents, were concerned. Pope John XXIII had appointed ten Council Presidents. After Pope John's death Pope Paul VI appointed only four moderators after the second session of the Council. These four moderators were Cardinal Dopfner. Cardinal Suenens. Cardinal Lercaro and Cardinal Agagianian. The trend was obvious, it carried enormous weight for the mass of Council Fathers.

WE MIGHT HAVE HAD A SPLENDID COUNCIL, by following up its preparations and taking Pope Pius XII as Master and Doctor of the Council. Pius XII had something to say on all problems; reference to him was all that was necessary. I do not believe that there exists a single problem of the modern world and our day which he has not settled with all his learning, all his theology, all his holiness. To all Pope Pius XII offered a solution. I do not say an ultimate, but almost final solution. That is because he really saw things from the point of view of faith. But no, there was no desire for a dogmatic council. Be sure to remember that. Pope John XXIII said it and Pope Paul VI repeated it. During the meetings of the Council we have often sought to get definitions of ideas. Define religious freedom, collegiality. etc. There came the reply: "But we are not being dogmatic, we are not stating a philosophy. We are concerned with pastoral theology."

Define what a man is, define what is human dignity. It is all very fine to speak of human dignity, but what does it mean? What is liberty? Define those terms. No, no. We are concerned with matter pastoral. So be it—you are dealing with pastoral questions, but in that case your council is not like other councils. The other councils were dogmatic. All the councils have combatted errors. God knows there were errors enough to combat in our time! They were ample for the calling of a dogmatic Council and I well remember Cardinal Wyszinsky's saying to us: "Draw up a schema on Communism; if there is one grave error threatening the entire world today, that is it. If Pope Pius XI felt it his duty to issue an encyclical on Communism, it would remain very useful for us, gathered here in full assembly, to draw up a schema on Communism."

We obtained the signatures of six hundred bishops in favor of a declaration against Communism. But do you know how the story ended: the six hundred signatures were left forgotten in a drawer. And, when the Chairman for Gaudium et Spes put the problem before us he said: "There have been two petitions for the condemnation of Communism." "Two petitions?" we answered, "there are over six hundred!" "Then," said he, "I know nothing about them." A search was made. The six hundred signatures were left once more lying in the drawer.

I know these things through personal experience. If I tell you of them it is not to condemn the Council. It could have been a magnificent thing but, as matters fell out, it must be admitted that nothing can justify some occurrences. "Yet," you will say, "the Council is inspired by the Holy Spirit?" Not necessarily. A pastoral, non-dogmatic Council is a sermon which does not, of itself, invoke infallibility.

When at the close of the Sessions we asked the Secretary of the Council, "Could you not give us what theologians call the keynote of the Council?" He replied: "Distinctions must be drawn among the various schemata and chapters, between those which had been the subject of dogmatic definition in the past and statements with the stamp of novelty; the latter call for certain reservations."

This Council, then, is not a council like the others, and for that reason we have a right to judge it prudently and with some reservation. We have no right to say that the crisis through which we are going is wholly unrelated to the Council, that it is simply a misrepresentation of the Council.

There were time-bombs in the Council. I believe there were three: collegiality, religious freedom and ecumenism.

Collegiality, which corresponds to the term Egalité of the French Revolution—has the same ideology. Collegiality means the destruction of personal authority; democracy is the destruction of the authority of God, of the authority of the Pope, of the authority of the bishops. Collegiality corresponds to the equality of the Revolution of' 1789.

Religious freedom is the second time-bomb. Religious freedom corresponds to the term Liberté of the French Revolution. It is an ambiguous term which the devil loves to use.

That term was never understood in the meaning accepted by the Council. All earlier documents of the Church which speak of religious freedom mean the liberty of religion, never the liberty of religions. When speaking of that freedom the Church was invariably referring to liberty for religion and tolerance for other religions. Error is tolerated. To give it freedom is to give it a right; but it has none. Truth alone has rights. To acknowledge freedom of religions is to give equal rights to truth and error. That is impossible. The Church can never say anything of the kind. To speak thus is, in my opinion, to blaspheme. It is opposed to the glory of God—God is Truth, Jesus Christ is Truth. To put Jesus Christ on the same footing as a Mahomet or as a Luther, what is it but blasphemy? If we have faith we have no right to admit this. It is the error of common law condemned by Pius IX and all the Popes.

Along with religious liberty it is liberty as understood by the French Revolution which penetrated the Council.

So, to the last time-bomb—ecumenism. If you think for a moment you will realize that it corresponds to Fraternité. Heretics were referred to as brethren, Protestants as separated brethren. There you have fraternity. With ecumenism we have really achieved it; brotherhood with communists.

Time and again the Popes have pointed it out. In his encyclical Immortale Dei Leo XIII wrote on the new law and the old law. The new law is revolutionary ideology as a whole. Read all those passages again and you will realize that we are now living on what happened in civil society and is now happening in the Church. Every Pope from the time of the French Revolution had set up an unsurmountable barrier against the errors of the Revolution ;the ideas of the Revolution never penetrated the Church. By these three terms—collegiality, religious liberty and ecumenism—the Modernists have got what they wanted.

These then are the aims against which we have striven. The Church has indeed the words of eternal life, she will not perish, but who can say how small a remnant of her little flock will survive once these errors and ideologies have penetrated everywhere.

WHAT IS TO BE SAID OF THE LITURGY and of the sacraments?

If the Eucharist is to be valid, and so for all the other sacraments, there must be present the matter, form and intention necessary for their validity. The Pope himself cannot alter that. The matter is of divine institution. The Pope cannot say: "Tomorrow alcohol shall be used for baptizing infants." It is not within his power. There are things in the sacraments which the Pope cannot change. Neither can he essentially change the form. Certain words are essential: one may not say, for example, "I baptize you in the name of God." Our Lord Himself gave us the form: "You shall baptize in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." Neither can the Pope alter the fact that the priest's intention is necessary. How can that be known? Remember the historical fact of Pope Leo XIII's proclamation that all Anglican orders were invalid for lack of intention; lack of intention because it is necessary to will what the Church wills. True, the faith of the priest is not a necessary element, one priest may no longer have the faith, another's may have dwindled, a third may not believe fully; that has no direct, only an indirect, influence on the validity of the orders. Now, Anglicans by the very fact that they have lost the faith, have refused to do what the Church does.

Would not the same situation arise in the case of priests who have lost the faith? We shall find priests who will no longer carry out the sacrament of the Eucharist in accordance with the definition of the Council of Trent. If they are asked: "Is the Eucharist that you are celebrating that of the Council of Trent?" The reply will be: "No. Much has happened since the days of the Council of Trent. We have Vatican II now. Now it is transsignification and transfinalization. Transubstantiation—the Real Presence of Our Lord, of the Body of Our Savior, the physical presence of Our Lord under the species of bread and wine? No, not in these days." Should priests say that to you, the Consecration is invalid, for they no longer carry out what the Church defined at the Council of Trent. That is irreformable. What the Council of Trent laid down on the Holy Mass and Eucharist Christians are bound to believe till the end of time. Terms may be made more explicit, but they cannot be changed; that is an impossibility. Whoever says that he does not accept transubstantiation, says the Council of Trent, is anathema, and therefore separated from the Church. One day you may be obliged to ask your priests: "Do you believe in the definitions of the Council of Trent, yes or no? If you no longer believe, your Eucharist is invalid. The Lord is not present." Because they are desirous of doing what the so-called New Theology, the new religion seeks to do, it is no longer what the Church wills. That is why we must be very circumspect. One may not do no matter what with the sacraments: the sacraments were instituted by Our Lord Jesus Christ and explicitly defined by the whole tradition of the Church.

What, then, must, we do? Confronted with this unleashing of the devil against the Church—for it is indeed that—what are we to do? We must look at things in terms of the supernatural. The devil is at large today—this is perhaps one of his last battles, an out-and-out conflict. He is seeking to attack on all fronts. If Our Lady of Fatima said that one day the devil would mount to the highest spheres of the Church it is not perhaps incorrect. For myself, I affirm nothing, I condemn no one, but if it be true that she said it, it could happen. When will it happen? I do not know, but there are now signs and symptoms which might lead us to suspect that among the highest circles in Rome there are now people who have lost the faith. I am ready to say, do and grant whatever the powers in Rome, from the Pope himself to the lowest secretaries of Congregations desire, provided that they do not rob us of our faith. Do not make me change what the Council of Trent said. Do not make me change my Credo. Do not make me change the essence of the sacraments. If an angel from heaven tells you what is contrary to the truth, says Paul, do not listen to him.

We must pray. We must do penance. The Blessed Virgin has told us so. But we must put it into practice. We must say the rosary as a family. We must pray before the Blessed Sacrament. Pray to Our Lord, to Our Lady, to our Guardian Angels. We must pray to St. Michael, Archangel, we must live among those in heaven that they may intercede for us and help us in our tragic plight. Today, it is when bombs are beginning to fall or there are other grave dangers that people have recourse to prayer; it is then that they begin to tremble and think of God.

But we are living at a time when bombs are raining on us and we are in danger of losing the faith. It is infinitely worse to lose the life of the soul than the life of the body. Let us, therefore, pray and do penance. We should know how to do without television and break with the desires of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life and honors. We must know how to do penance, abstaining from all that is too much of this world, all that panders to the flesh and indecent dress. All such things should be wholly forbidden to true Christians or we shall be bereft of God's grace, the grace needful now to our salvation. We shall go from one disaster to another.

Finally, you must organize your apostolate, and give help and succour to your priests. I fully realize their present problems of resistance, especially for those in the ministry, those who hold office. I fully understand that it is difficult, because a moral pressure is exerted on them and it puts them under a kind of obligation to act as they do and to modify to some extent all the rites of the Mass. The adoration of the Blessed Sacrament which used to take place, all the Benedictions of the Blessed Sacrament which used to be celebrated, all that is disappearing, the rosary must no longer be said, and so forth. Your priests need support. If they feel themselves in the midst of encouraging Christians, priests will again take courage and revert to the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the recitation of the Rosary, they will no longer give Communion in the hand, they will not invite just anybody to preach or choose just any reading. Little by little there will be a return to good and healthy traditions, even—so far as possible—to the traditional Canon at least. It is a prayer dating back to the Apostles. When we are told: "You have no right to do this, St. Pius V made one Mass, Paul VI has made another. You should adopt the Mass of Paul VI and abandon that of St. Pius V"—it is not at all the same thing. The Mass given us is an altered Mass. The best proof of this is to be found in the definition of the Mass in Article VII which is not the same definition as that of the Council of Trent. St. Pius V changed nothing. On the contrary, he simply codified what was from the time of the Apostles. St. Thomas himself says so: explaining the whole Mass he says frequently that these prayers belong to the Apostolic Tradition. The prayers of the Canon and many others are those of the Apostolic Tradition. St. Pius V changed nothing. It is now that, for the sake of ecumenism, for the sake of praying jointly with Protestants, we are made to change. In his—dare I say— naivety, Father Schutz of Taizé, said it in plain terms when, coming back from Rome where he had been attached to the Commission for the Liturgy and for the Reform of the Mass, he commented: "Now we can say the Mass with Catholic priests." Why now? Why not before? Clearly something has changed.

In any case, I can assure you of one thing—my seminarians hold fast to the faith and I am edified by these young people. They are pious, they are light-hearted. Many of them have taken their degrees. They are no longer children, but young men who know what they are doing, who know what they want. Hence I have great confidence in these young people and am convinced of their outstanding qualities. For me, it is a miracle, a real miracle. For all these young people have lived like all other young people, they have been in the universities and so been in contact with the world. When it is said that these young people will not be fitted for the world—come, are they not drawn from the universities? One of them read biology for seven years, and he would not be adapted to the world? Be serious! These young people are well aware of what they are doing. They love the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass because they see that it is the heart of the Church. It is all deeply consoling and encouraging. I assure you that you must in no way despair of our time—on the contrary. There are still very fine vocations; do but give these vocations the opportunity to flower naturally, and our seminaries will be full once more.

I tell you this to encourage you so that you may not lose heart and I keenly hope that you too may be able to say with St. Paul in the evening of his days, when he was awaiting Our Lord's reward: "I have kept the faith." Why did he say that? Because he realized that to keep the faith to the end of one's days, even until death, is a very great grace from God, it is the greatest grace of all—that of final perseverance. I pray God that you too, till the ending of your days, may keep the faith so that the Church may go on.

Part I