What do you ask of the Church? The Faith!
Sermon of Bishop Bernard Fellay, preached at Saint-Malo, France, on the Feast of the Assumption (August 15, 2008)
We are here to fulfill the vow of King Louis XIII. We may say that more than ever we must try to fulfill this vow not only by a procession, not only on the occasion of praises to the Blessed Virgin Mary by which we acknowledge her as our queen and mother, but by having her truly enter into our personal lives, as well as our family lives and social lives. More than ever we must live in this intimacy with the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. More than ever we need her patronage and protection.
For we live in very special times. If you want, I think we can be so bold as to use the word apocalyptic. We are living in apocalyptic times; not that we wish to find some complacency in fantastic things, but quite simply because what we are living corresponds to what is described in the book of Sacred Scripture called the Apocalypse. It is true that, taken in a very broad sense, the Apocalypse describes what has been happening in the Church ever since the death of Our Lord and until the end of time. In a broad sense, this book must be understood as a description of the life of the Church. Some authors, and saints among them, discerned various interpretations, and set aside some chapters saying: “This chapter applies to such a time, and that to such and such a time.” We know that the future escapes us, and it is always dangerous to want to apply the Word of God, which is beyond us, to particular events. Once the events have occurred, it is easier to say that such and such a part has been fulfilled and that such a prophecy was destined for such a period of time. This is a delicate matter, and we do not wish to attempt this type of application.
The fact remains, nevertheless, that what we are living–both in human society and in the Church—is not normal, but completely outside of what is usual and ordinary. We are truly living in a time in which everything is disrupted, and in which even the most basic principles are under attack. It is unbelievable! We wish we could say that this cannot be, that it must not exist. Yet, that is what we are living through. It is a reality. And we cannot use faith against reality. If it is real, it is real! We have the promises of Our Lord: “The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church.” (Mt. 16:18). Our Lord is the Truth. This sentence is and remains true. Yet, when we look at its concrete application, we really feel like saying that the theologians at the time following Vatican I—the council in which the primacy of the pope and the infallibility of the sovereign pontiff were so solemnly affirmed–would certainly have considered what we are living through as impossible, inconceivable.
The Message of Our Lady of La Salette
It is very interesting to remember that Our Lady at La Salette had foretold a terrible time for the Church. These predictions, which were passed on to Rome, were placed on the Index because they were so frightful! The fact that they were placed on the Index does not mean that they were false. For a long time, when any one referred to Our Lady of La Salette he was summarily silenced by a: “The Church has condemned it!” The Church simply forbade that the messages be read by placing them on the Index, but it does not mean that they were false. Some years ago, precisely October 3, 1999, the original manuscripts of Melanie and of Maximin were rediscovered in the archives of the Holy Office, which is now called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. There one can find all the reports, those from Melanie, who sent to the pope what the Blessed Virgin had told her, the famous Secret of La Salette. We also have the texts from Maximin, who had also received secrets from Our Lady. Everything was kept and has been published relatively recently. Now, we observe that the texts which had circulated were absolutely faithful and really correspond to what was truly said. And what did the Blessed Virgin say at La Salette? She foretold a terrible time for the Church, going so far as to say: “Rome will lose the Faith.” She stated: “The Church will be as it were eclipsed; Rome will become the see of the Antichrist.” Such words are extremely strong! There were also very severe reproaches addressed to the clergy. Has there been since then a time when these things were confirmed more specifically than in our days? Since La Salette until today, have not these past 40 years been those which came closest to this description? These words are so strong that we dare not make them ours.
We do not dare say today: “Rome has lost the Faith.” We say that such or such a cardinal has lost the Faith, or that bishop so and so acts as if he no longer had the Faith. Even today, we do not dare say that Rome has lost the Faith.
Now, it seems to me that it is not without reason that we see many things which are being done or published in Rome, and which are no longer an expression of the Catholic Faith. We may even go so far as saying that we are witnessing the rise of a new church, a church which claims to be Catholic but no longer has anything Catholic about it. It has its own rites, its Bible, its way of doing things, but it is no longer what the Church has been teaching for centuries. We call this new church “conciliar,” or rather, it calls itself thus. However, it is almost impossible to discern it from the true Church. It is somewhat like a general cancer. In a person, the cancer is not the same as the person, it is not his true nature, but an illness. Yet it is present in him all the same. When the cancer is only a tumor, we can circumvent it and remove it. But once there are metastases all over the body, the physician can no longer do anything, because he observes that the cancer is everywhere. He no longer dares to take his surgical knife to excise the foreign body he finds in the person.
Pascendi by St. Pius X and Humani Generis by Pius XII
With this image, I am trying to explain as best I can a mystery, the great mystery of this foreign body which spreads something other than the Catholic Church inside the very Church. It wants to be friends with all religions, claims that you can be saved in any religion, and that the Holy Ghost uses them all as means of salvation. All this is false. Never has this been the teaching of the Church! Today we have a Church which is promoting what was condemned less than 50 years ago. And we see that it all happened during the Second Vatican Council. This Council did not so much invent novelties as give its approval to and legalize what was condemned as erroneous ten years earlier. As a side note, I encourage you very much to re-read Pius XII’s encyclical Humani Generis, concerning modern errors. It is the last great condemnation of the errors in the Church. It has some similarity with St. Pius X’s Pascendi, which condemned Modernism, but at the time, Pius X had managed to neutralize the enemy. He rightly said that the enemy was inside. Already at the beginning of the 20th century he denounced the enemy of the Church as working from within the Church. Now, this undermining work continued, and we find ourselves today in this very delicate situation, for, on the one hand, we are obliged out of necessity to retain our faith in the Church in order to be saved. And the Church cannot remain a mere abstract concept, for it is a visible and concrete reality: the Catholic Church. And even as we confess our faith in the Church, in all it is and has been, we must separate ourselves, take our distance from and oppose a foreign body, a new body, which intends to be new, and which has been spreading for 40 years and is bearing deadly fruits.
This revolution in the Church did more harm to the Church than wars and persecutions. More spiritual deaths, more desertions, a greater loss for the Church–in religious congregations and among the priests –were caused by this internal revolution than by wars and persecutions. Even the Communist persecution did not manage to make as many spiritual casualties as the crisis started by Vatican II. Consequently, we fight, we defend ourselves against this poison, which is not the spirit of the Catholic Church. The trouble is that we find promoters of error up to the very top circles of the government of the Church. Yet, they do not all spread these novelties in like manner, nor constantly.
Pope Paul VI: “The Smoke of Satan” in the Church
Thus Paul VI, who, just after John XXIII, installed this new religion, could say that, in the Church, there were forces and ideas that were not of the Church. He even went so far as to state that the smoke of Satan had entered the Church through some crack. Such a statement chills us to the bone. To Jean Guitton, he said that a way of thinking foreign to the Church might triumph. He said it, but he also added that it would never be the Church, for there would always be a remnant, no matter how infinitesimal it might be. Thus spoke Paul VI, the man who made the New Mass and stuck to it. The pope who started ecumenism! What a mixed-bag!
There is also this fact, which is not well-known: when the same Paul VI published the New Mass, Cardinal Journet went to see him because the definition given in the introduction of the New Mass was outright heresy. So, Cardinal Journet went to see the Pope, and Paul VI broke out in tears before him and said that he had signed the document without reading it. This is how the New Mass was accepted by a pope who trusted his collaborator Bugnini, and who did not even read the texts presented to him! Of course, this definition was corrected, but the Mass was not. This is one example of the irregularities which kept cropping up and destroyed the Church. Take Communion in the hand: The text which introduced this practice in the Church was in fact a condemnation. The document said that it was not allowed, but that since the usage had been introduced in some areas it might be kept there. It was thus that Communion in the hand spread to the whole world. Concerning penance, a text said that penance is a very good thing, that we must do penance–it is the text dealing with indulgences–but when you have finished reading it you no longer know what it means to do penance. And so on. We could take one document after another. It is unbelievable confusion!
Pope John Paul II Denounced “a Silent Apostasy”
At the beginning of his pontificate, John Paul II, the man who called the Assisi meeting, lamented the fact that errors and heresies were spread by some in the Church, and that today’s Christians were tempted by agnosticism. At the end of his life, this pope deplored a “silent apostasy.” If he could lament thus, he still had a Catholic outlook, and yet he brought about the unspeakable disaster of Assisi.
So, you see, my dear brethren, I give you these elements to show you how delicate the situation is, and with how much prudence we must deal with this reality, bearing always in mind that we are here touching upon a mystery. A mystery is a truth which is beyond us. It is a reality which we can observe, yet we do not have the key to explain it. The mystery we see here resembles the mystery of the Passion of Our Lord. The Apostles, all the disciples of Christ were obliged to believe in His divinity and in His omnipotence. Now, they saw this God, whom they adored as Almighty, suffer, be bruised, crucified, and they even saw Him dead on a cross. Human reason says: “But if He is God, He cannot suffer, He cannot die. If He is almighty, He will send these soldiers and His torturers rolling on the ground with a simple wink of His eye.” But it was not so. He let them do to Him whatever they wanted. Yet, He remained God. He is really God. Nevertheless, He suffered, not as God, but in His humanity. I would say that in this, we also have an example which can help us to understand what is happening in the Church. Some mystics, some saints, and Archbishop Lefebvre himself proposed to us this mysterious conception according to which the Church, the Mystical Body of Our Lord, walks in the footsteps of His physical body. If Our Lord willed to undergo a passion in His physical body, this Passion continues in the members of His Mystical Body throughout time and space.
There are times when this Passion is more clearly apparent–during persecutions, for instance. The Passion we live today is much more difficult to perceive because the persecution is not physical but spiritual, and the arm of the persecutor is not dealing its blows from the outside but from inside the Church. It becomes almost unbearable. The good God is putting us through a terrible test for our faith. He demands of us heroic faith, and in times such as these, my dear brethren, we must turn to the Blessed Virgin, for if there is someone in history in whom faith shines forth, it certainly is Our Lady.
She was the object of a beatitude because of her faith. In the Gospel, her cousin Elizabeth told her: “Blessed art thou, because thou hast believed the things that were told thee” (Lk. 1:45). She was blessed because of this faith. And later on, she would manifest her faith at the foot of the cross. So, we must turn to her and ask her for a faith which can make it through this trial. And if you are here today, it is clearly because God sustains your faith. He keeps you in the Catholic Faith, in the Catholic life which goes on in spite of everything, and in spite of trials. But once again, how much we need this support.
The Ultimatum from Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos
I would like to take advantage of the occasion to give you some news about what is going on presently in Rome with regard to the Society. You probably heard that there was a question of an ultimatum. Where do we stand now? First of all, this ultimatum was strange, because, usually when this type of action is taken, there is an object. In our case, we really wonder what the point was. At the beginning of the month of June, I was summoned by Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos because the latest Letters to Friends and Benefactors of the Society of Saint Pius X was reviewing the situation and clearly stated that we were not ready to swallow the poison found in the Council. The Roman authorities did not like this. What displeased them was the fact that we said that we would not change; that we would resist, and that we would not drink the poison. Consequently, I was summoned to Rome, and there, I was handed a typed sheet. The meeting took place in the offices of the Ecclesia Dei Commission–as a side note, it was the first and only time I went to these offices. So, in the room were present the Cardinal; the vice-president of the Commission, Msgr. Perl; the secretary, Msgr. Marini; and the Cardinal’s private secretary. I was accompanied by Father Nély.
We were handed a written note, and the Cardinal asked me to read it aloud in front of everybody. In this letter, which really sounded like an ultimatum, it basically said: “Up to now, I stated that you were not schismatics, but henceforth I will no longer be able to say so. Today, you must accept the clear conditions which we are going to impose upon you.” After having read it, I asked the Cardinal what the clear conditions were, since they were not written. The Cardinal answered nothing at all. So I asked the question again, saying: “What do you expect of me?” At that moment, almost under his breath, he answered: “If, in conscience, you think you must tell this to your faithful, do so! But you must respect the person of the Pope.” To this I retorted that I had no problem with this. And the meeting ended upon this. How can I affirm that the reason for the meeting was truly the latest Letter to Friends and Benefactors? Because I asked him, since he was referring to it. I said: “Could you tell me what is wrong in this letter?” He read it over in front of me, and the only reproach he could come up with was the fact that I had written that convents and seminaries were empty. He told me: “This is not true.” That was the one and only reproach.
So, what was the point of the ultimatum? What was its object? After the meeting, I told Father Nély that I felt very much frustrated, because I had witnessed a stage rehearsal. They had put on a very emotional show with the Cardinal declaring: “That is the end of it! I call a press conference. I give it all up!” As to what they were really expecting of me, I had not the faintest idea. Consequently, I sent Father Nély back the next day to ask the question once again: “What do you want?” That is when they had him wait for half an hour, enough time for them to write the famous five points which were published on the Internet.
The first of the five points says: “Bishop Fellay must commit himself to give an answer proportionate to the Pope’s generosity.” What could be the meaning of this? The sentence is extremely vague and could mean everything and nothing. We were forced to suppose that the generosity of the Pope was the Motu Proprio. And the proportionate response was to thank him for it, while acknowledging that it was not made for us, since it was for all the priests of the Church. Otherwise we do not see what it meant.
Next, I had to commit myself, in this same letter, to respect the person of the Pope. I suppose it meant that he must not be insulted, but if you consider it an insult to say that he is perfectly liberal right after a visit to the USA during which he did nothing but praise the American State, declaring that religious liberty was great… Truly, you cannot find a statement more liberal than this. I see nothing insulting in my words.
The third point is more “touchy” because they ask me not to set myself up as “a magisterium above the pope, and not to place the Society in opposition to the Church.” Once again, this can mean everything as well as nothing at all. With this sentence, each time we would present an objection, we might be told: “You set yourself above the pope.” This point makes us clearly understand that Rome does not at all agree with the fact that we dare say something against the Council. That is where the problem lies.
We Consider a Theological Debate Essential
It has been said that I had refused an offer from Rome, but there was no offer from Rome. There merely was a cardinal who was getting impatient because, as he said, things “were dragging on.” Now, ever since the year 2000, we had told the Roman authorities that we did not trust them, and that if they wanted a dialogue, they first had to give some tokens which might rebuild some of our confidence. We had requested two tokens: freedom for the traditional Mass and the withdrawal of the decree of excommunication of the bishops. Seven years later, we can say that one of the points has been fulfilled.
There still remains the second to be fulfilled. After that, we had told them we would be ready to discuss. We say it again, because it is very important, and we really consider the theological debate essential since it must make it possible to see whether what was said during and after the Council is faithful to Christian Revelation and the teaching of the Church.
We do not set ourselves above the pope. The popes in the past are those who canonized a number of propositions and defined them as dogmas. These propositions can no longer be changed. A dogma is unquestionable. Consequently, we do not set ourselves up as judges. We simply ask the pope of today to explain how what he tells us corresponds to what his predecessors have said, bearing in mind these very clear words of the Apostle St. Paul: “If an angel, or even myself, preaches a Gospel different from that which I have taught you, let him be anathema” (Gal. 1: 8-9). You cannot use stronger words. We have the impression that St. Paul already foresaw situations such as ours: “If I, myself–and he was an apostle—begin to teach you something different from what I have told you before, let me be anathema! If an angel comes and teaches you something else, let him be anathema!”
We have twenty centuries of teaching of the doctrine of the Church. These are the things which judge the pope, not we. The pope is infallible when he meets the conditions set up for him. And since he knows this, let him use his infallibility! And then he will express the Faith, as all his predecessors did. If now, like at the Second Vatican Council, they do not want to make use of this infallibility, what happened then will happen again.
We Do Not Want to Build Upon Sand
Yet, on our part, be it well understood that we have refused absolutely nothing from Rome. Even now, we keep telling them that the canonical situation of the Society cannot be resolved if we do not first look into the root problem–this root problem is precisely all the novelties introduced into the Church since Vatican II. If we were to act otherwise, it would be tantamount to accepting the following offer: we give you a house. But a house does not stand in the air, it is built upon something, upon a piece of ground. If the house is built on quicksand, would you take it? If you know that tomorrow it will fall down, and disappear, swallowed up into the marshes, you would tell yourself: it is not worth it. Likewise, if you are told that you are going to be given a Rolls Royce, but that it cannot leave the garage, why is it given to you at all? Or if you are told that you are to be given a ship, but she must remain ashore…
That is what is happening to us. Rome, when they want to sign a canonical agreement, or to take the previous image, when they offer us a car, a ship, or a house, absolutely do not want to discuss the rock upon which the house must be built. For the Roman authorities, it goes without saying that the atmosphere in which this car would ride, or this ship would sail, is the doctrinal atmosphere of Vatican II. And that is precisely the crux of the matter, and we want Rome to confront it. As long as Rome does not want to do so, we cannot go forward. We are obliged to take this route, because otherwise we would be building upon sand. And we do not want to build upon sand. We say this in the name of the Faith, of the teaching of the Church, of what the Church has practiced.
From Rome We Expect the Faith
We are told: “You know, the Pope is well disposed towards you, but who will come after him? We do not know! So, the time to come to an agreement is now or never.” I answered the Cardinal who was telling me this: “Eminence, I believe in the Holy Ghost. If the Holy Ghost is able to enlighten this pope, he can just as well enlighten the next.” And if this pope desires our good, the next one might desire an even greater good for us. Once again, we cannot discuss the Faith. We do not have the right to tamper with the Faith. When we see so clearly what is going on in the Church–and it is God who gives us such a grace–there is no room for negotiations. Besides, I do not like this term. It is wrong. We are not negotiating with Rome. From Rome we expect the Faith. That is the first thing which took place at our baptism. It was the first question: “What do you ask from the Church?”
“Faith.”
“What does faith offer you?”
“Life everlasting.” This is the contract signed at our baptism.
We ask faith from the Church, and we know that the Church alone can give it to us. So, we maintain this first request made at baptism. We do nothing else. We could sum up all our combat in this, for we know that the Church is the only entity established by God which can save us–we cannot be saved outside of the Church: Outside of the Church, there is no salvation. We know that salvation comes through faith and grace. This is what we are requesting from Rome, nothing more nor less. It will take whatever time is necessary.
Will we still be alive when things improve? Of course, we hope so, but we really do not know. It is true that, humanly speaking, we can observe a number of things which show that we are going towards an improvement. In the domain of principles, there is an awakening, an expectation, especially among the younger generations, those who did not receive anything. In their expectation, they turn towards Tradition, and being dissatisfied with what is given them today, they ask for traditional doctrine. We see priests who turn to the old Mass and quite simply discover their religion. If you knew how many young priests who, having celebrated the old Mass for the first time, tell us: “But these are two different worlds! When I celebrate this Mass I find out what a priest is.” This does not mean that they had no idea about their priesthood, but in the Mass they discover that Our Lord wants His priests to be united to Him, to be, as it were, His “extensions” and mediators between God and men to wrest men’s salvation from God’s Heart by the Sacrifice of His Son to which they are called to unite themselves.
This is the key to today’s crisis: they no longer want the cross, nor suffering; they no longer want to hear about sin or sacrifice. We can say that the solution of the crisis lies precisely here. This is the reason why we place so much emphasis on the Mass, because the Mass is the incarnated expression of this faith: salvation comes through the cross; it comes through the sacrifice of Our Lord; it comes through the priest. The crisis we are experiencing is a crisis of the priesthood. They meant to denature the priest, and the priest today no longer finds his identity in the New Mass. When you say this, it gets on the nerves of Rome! They cannot stand that we say that the New Mass is bad. Yet, you only need to have eyes to see; it is obvious. You only have to look at the fruits. Our Lord told us that we would know the tree by its fruits.
“The Fruits Are Good, Hence the Holy Ghost Is There!”
So we must carry on as long as it is necessary. Will the affair, which occurred at the beginning of the summer, end up with a declaration of schism, as some of our enemies would like it to? I doubt it, but I really have no idea. And then, what would it change? Anyway, the bishops are already treating us as schismatics and as the worst men living on the face of the earth. In their churches they welcome everybody. They have ceremonies of prayers with everybody, but as for us, they deal with us as if we were pests. You should see what they do! And while at Rome they say that we are not schismatics, but we are treated like the scourge of mankind. It will last as long as it is supposed to, my dear brethren. We have the daily comfort given by grace. We clearly see that God is at work in our souls and in our children’s souls. We can see that these are the fruits of grace, and even Rome acknowledges it. This same Cardinal Castrillon, speaking about the Society told me: “The fruits are good, hence the Holy Ghost is there.” Then let him draw the consequences. We cannot draw them in their stead. We would not dare to praise ourselves thus, even though we, too, can observe that the fruits are good.
So, let us have recourse to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. Today, in one of the antiphons, we praise her as she who crushes all heresies. We chant: “Blessed art thou who hast crushed all heresies.” Mary, who is so sweet on one side, also has something terrible about her under another aspect. And this comes from her love. If we love God, if we love the good, we must hate what is against God in the same measure. We must hate sin. In this, we have, as it were, a thermometer for our spiritual state: to what extent do we hate sin, and our own sins to begin with? Because in that same measure, we also love God.
Let us ask the Blessed Virgin to increase this measure of love and the measure of our aversion for all that is opposed to God, His reign, and the salvation of souls. Let us ask Our Lady for this special protection and let us merit this protection by a special devotion. Let us strive to grow in our intimacy with the Immaculate Heart of Mary. May Our Lady be truly our Mother every day, and not only for the space of a Hail Mary or as we pass before her statue. May she truly be our mother! The consecration which we are about to renew according to the vow made by Louis XIII must have consequences in our lives. It must not be mere words. This gift to the Blessed Mary must be real and true. And thereafter, let us live truly as her children. Then, we will ensure our salvation, and consequently the continuation of the Tradition of the Faith of the Church through time and space for the generations to come. Amen.
© DICI, 2008.
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