“Instaurare omnia in Christo”

Romanitas
The Papacy and the
Modern Mind
Rome’s Grandeur
Anti-Romanism

January - February 2015

“You are Rock, and upon this
Rock I shall build My Church.”
This unusual English translation
of Matthew’s Gospel best renders
the original play on words
purposely used by Our Lord when
He promised Peter the primacy
over His Church. What better
words can relate the solidity,
the unicity, and the divine
support of this papal function
to guide Christ’s Church as His
Lieutenant?

Letter
from the
Publisher
Archbishop Lefebvre was educated at the fountainhead of Christianity. His best
formative years were spent in the shadow of St. Peter’s of Rome. His would be a Roman
mind, a Roman spirit, and a love for Rome which nothing could sever, much less the present Roman crisis.
To those little familiar with the fundamentals of his personality, it may appear paradoxical that the one man who so openly opposed Peter in the 20th century could be so
attached to Romanitas. He confessed that, when the Roman pressure began against
him, he “would have wished rather to die than to experience difficulties with the Pope.”
Some of his writings taken from the Spiritual Journey express well the various aspects of
Romanitas we wish to communicate to our readers.
“God, who leads all things, has in His infinite wisdom prepared Rome to become the
Seat of Peter and center for the radiation of the Gospel. He willed that Christianity, cast
in a certain way in the Roman mold, should receive from it a vigorous and exceptional
expansion. Hence the adage: Onde Cristo è Romano.
“Schisms and heresies are often begun by a rupture with Romanitas, a rupture with
the Roman liturgy, with Latin, with the theology of the Latin and Roman Fathers and
theologians.
“Ours is the duty to guard this Roman Tradition desired by Our Lord… Our conclusion
will be that one cannot be Catholic without being Roman.”
Following in the wake of this defender of the papacy’s rights in the face of Peter, we
need to understand the heavenly designs over the Eternal City, the synonymy between
Catholic and Roman, and be willing to even suffer the spiritual martyrdom he went
through for the sake of our Holy Mother, the Church of Rome.

Fr. Jürgen Wegner
Publisher

January - February 2015
Volume XXXVIII, Number 1
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Contents
Letter from the Publisher

4

Theme: Romanitas
––Papacy in Modern Minds
––Rome’s Grandeur
––Anti-Romanism
––Roman Impressions

6
10
16
23

Faith and Morals
––Doctrine: The Choice of Rome
––Liturgy: The Papal Profession of Faith
––Social Doctrine: Dyed-in-the-Wool Roman!

30
33
37

Spirituality
––Lives of the Saints: Apologia Pro St. Pius V
––Spirituality: The Bones of St. Peter

41
44

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Christian Culture
––Book Review: Mary in Our Life. The Golden Door
––History: Bloodthirsty Indifferentism

52
53

“Instaurare omnia in Christo”

The Angelus (ISSN 10735003) is published bi-monthly
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©2014 by Angelus Press. Official Publication of the
Priestly Society of Saint Pius X for the United States and Canada

––Family Life: Who Wants to Set the Table?
––Missions: Central America
––Questions and Answers

58
61
68

News from Tradition
––Church and World
––Theological Studies: Romanitas
––The Last Word

72
78
87

Theme Romanitas

Papacy in
Modern
Minds
by Fr. Daniel Themann, SSPX

“All of the multitude are holy ones, and the
Lord is among them. Why do you lift yourselves
up above the people of the Lord?” (Num. 16:3).
So spoke certain men of the Old Testament who
claimed to worship the one true God but, being of
a too democratic turn of mind, refused submission
to the religious authority which that same God had
placed over them to rule in His name. The tragic
truth is that men, infected with original sin, will
always be liberals at heart. That primordial pride
which chafed under God’s single command in the
Garden of Paradise, will remain the inheritance of
a fallen race until the last man is born. Only with
reluctance will man bow his neck before God, and
with still far greater reluctance will he submit to
other men, sinners like himself, when God places
some in authority over others.
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January - February 2015

History has seen countless religious rebels
who follow the example of Core in his rebellion
against Moses and Aaron. Be they Protestant
or Neo-Modernist, they echo the protest quoted
above and do not profit from the example which
God saw fit to give men on this occasion:
“The earth broke asunder under their feet …
And they went down alive into hell the ground
closing upon them, and they perished from
among the people” (Numbers 16:31-33).

Human Religious Authority
God, the author of human nature, never fails
to respect His own craftsmanship. However
lofty and supernatural might be His plans, He
insists upon their complete harmony with that

nature He created. Men might forget that they
are men, but God never does. He has made them
naturally social, that is, dependent upon other
men for their very birth and the guidance of their
first tottering steps. He has made them rich in
potential but dependent—upon the family, the
school, the town, the nation—for the realization
of all the intellectual, physical, and moral
perfection which lies hidden in the possibilities
of the human soul.
So too, in the achievement of that greatest
destiny to which men are called; namely, to “be
made partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4),
God wills that men be perfected within a social
context. Therefore, before ascending to His
heavenly glory, Our Lord founded, together with
the “new testament” in His Blood, a new Israel—
the Catholic Church. This new religious society,
the fulfillment of the former figure, was founded
upon 12 new patriarchs (12 apostles) and 72 new
elders (72 disciples). Those who would follow
the God-Man must henceforth live in dependence
upon those chosen by Him and invested with His
own power to teach, to sanctify, and to rule “the
church of God, which He has purchased with
His own Blood” (Acts 20:28). Nothing could be
more consistent with the true state of human
nature—nothing so foreign to the false autonomy
preferred by fallen nature.

Vicarious and Monarchical
Our Lord, by a stroke of divine genius,
established both a visible religious society (as
human nature demands) and a visible religious
authority (as the nature of a society demands)—
without relinquishing His headship over His
Mystical Body. Those He left behind, the bishops
of the Church, are His vicars and ambassadors
who are authorized to act in His name (2
Corinthians 5:20). The dependence of men upon
the Church, therefore, is in no way opposed to
their ultimate dependence upon Christ Himself.
As St. Basil, in the fourth century, so well ex­
pressed it: “When Jesus distributes positions of
authority, He does not impoverish Himself, but
keeps the very things He bestows. He is a priest,
and He makes other priests; He is the Rock and

makes another the rock, and so He gives to His
servants what He Himself has” (Homily 29). St.
Basil might also have said, “God is the Shepherd
of His people, and He makes others to also be
shepherds,” since God often refers to Himself as
the Shepherd (Psalm 94:7, John 10:11) while also
designating men to be the visible rulers of His
flock (Ezekiel 34, 1 Peter 5:2-4).
But to one especially, to St. Peter, was
assigned this task of “feeding the sheep” of
Christ (John 21:15-17). One man alone, according
to Scripture’s cherished custom, was given
both a new name and a new mission—to be the
foundation stone of God’s household (John 1:42,
Matthew 16:18-19). To one man alone may the
term “vicar of Christ” be most properly applied
since to him alone were given “the keys to the
kingdom of heaven.” Therefore, by divine decree,
the constitution of the Church is similar to an
earthly monarchy. To one shepherd is given
that fullness of earthly authority which the
Good Shepherd delegated to His Church. As the
decree Pastor Aeternus of Vatican I puts it: “To
Peter alone, in preference to the other apostles,
whether individually or all together, was confided
the true and proper primacy of jurisdiction by
Christ” (Dz. 1822).
But it should be noted that Christ, the invisible
Head of the Church, did not delegate all of
His own authority. The pope is Christ’s vicar,
not His successor. Jesus Christ alone is the
founder of His Church, and He alone defines its
mission and the means by which this mission is
fulfilled. These means—the truths of faith, the
sacraments, etc.—are given into the pope’s hands
as a sacred trust to be used by him in guarding
and feeding the flock.

Modern Errors
The beginning of what historians call the
“modern age” coincided with the beginning of
Protestantism. This new, counterfeit Christianity
represented a certain “institutionalization” of the
rebellious tendencies of original sin—perhaps
the first such institution which the Western
world had seen since the coming of Christ.
Luther and his new breed of believers professed
7

Theme Romanitas
a horizontal, rather than hierarchical, form of
Christianity wherein each believer became an
autonomous interpreter of God’s word. The
authority and infallibility which they indignantly
denied to Christ’s vicar, they unhesitatingly
accorded to each and every man. A church of one
needs no shepherd.
But human nature refused to be wholly
ignored. Although, in theory, Protestantism
stripped religion of its social aspect, in practice,
men could not do without it. Congregations
under the headship of clergymen, seminaries,
and official versions of scripture, hymnals, and
liturgical books—in short, most of the trappings
of hierarchical papism—gradually arose within
non-Catholic circles. Over the succeeding
centuries, despite the growing entrenchment of
Luther’s anti-authority revolution both in secular
and religious thought, some tension inevitably
persisted between the thirst for independence
and the necessity of dependence. The result was
often an uneasy truce. Where hierarchy could
not be completely abolished, at least it must be
subjected to democratic influence.
With Vatican II and the opening of the Catholic
Church to “modern values,” this truce has been
forced upon the very constitution of the Church.
In this new venue, the revolution goes by the
fraternal sounding name collegiality, one of the
three now classic errors of the Second Vatican
Council. Difficult to define precisely, its broad
outlines are, nevertheless, easily discernible.
Supreme authority in the Church must no longer
be considered as the prerogative of one man.
Rather, the pope shares his authority with his
brother bishops in such a way that supreme
authority belongs to the college of bishops to be
exercised by them as a body. The Church must
govern herself more democratically and pursue
consensus among the shepherds—indeed, even
among the sheep—before taking a decision in
matters of faith, morals, and discipline.
This Neo-Modernist theory owes much of its
success to certain passages from Lumen Gentium,
Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.
Although the document as a whole expresses
itself equivocally on the question of the supreme
authority in the Church, paragraph 22, nonetheless,
contains the following erroneous statement: “The
8

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January - February 2015

order of bishops, which succeeds to the college of
apostles and gives this apostolic body continued
existence, is also the subject of supreme and full
power over the universal Church, provided we
understand this body together with its head the
Roman Pontiff and never without this head.”
Protestants had maintained for centuries
that Peter held no primacy of authority over
the other apostles, but a primacy of honor
only. This is easily disproved both by examples
within Scripture where Peter is seen exercising
his authority (Acts 1:15 ff., Acts 2:14 ff., Acts
5:29 ff., Acts 15:7 ff.) as well as from numerous
testimonies of the Church Fathers. Collegiality,
however, is a more sophisticated error. It begins
with the truth that Peter is equal to the other
apostles insofar as he was chosen to be an
apostle. It ends by ignoring the fact that Peter’s
role changed between the Resurrection and the
Ascension. Obviously, Christ had no need of a
vicar so long as He walked the earth and was
visibly present to His Church. It was only just
before His ascent to heaven that Christ gave to
Peter his unique role as chief shepherd (John
21:15-17) and fulfilled the promise to make of
Peter that foundation stone which his new name
implied.

The Faith of All Time
Without question, Peter’s primacy of authority
was not associated with the episcopal see of
Rome from the beginning—since this see had
not yet been founded. Rather, the primacy
became associated with this city—the capital of
the known world—by the authoritative choice
of St. Peter himself. What place more fitting
could be found for the capital of the universal
kingdom of God upon earth? No doubt faithful
to the inspiration of grace in his choice, St. Peter
completed the divine institution of the primacy
by designating the mode of that perpetual
transmission which had been instituted by
Christ. As taught by numerous theologians (e.g.
Bellarmine, Billot, Suarez, Palmieri), supreme
authority in the Church belongs to the bishop
of Rome by divine right, which is identical to an
apostolic right since an apostle is the immediate

legate of Christ.
St. Jerome summarizes well the faith of the
early Church—and the faith of all time—when
he states in his letter to Pope St. Damasus: “I
speak to the successor of the fisherman and to
the disciple of the cross. Following no chief but
Christ, I am united in communion with your
Holiness, that is, with the chair of Peter. I know
that on that rock is built the Church.” The mission

of this Church is to repair, one generation at a
time, the miserable consequences of man’s first
fall. But human nature cannot be restored by
ignoring it. Men must be social and dependent
upon earth if they would arrive to the joyful
fellowship of the wedding feast of the Lamb—and
enjoy the company of the saints and glorify the
merciful wisdom of God forever.

Sculpture of St. Peter, by Arnolfo di Cambio. St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome.

9

Theme Romanitas

Rome’s
Grandeur
by Robert de Mattei

1

10

See for example P. Hermann
Dieckmann, S.J., De
Ecclesia (Freiburg: Herder,
1925), I, 497-538; Michael
Schmaus, La Chiesa, tr. It.
Marietti (Casale Monferrato,
1963), pp. 472-556; Adriano
Garuti, Il mistero della
Chiesa: Manuale de
ecclesiologia (Rome:
Edizioni Antonianum,
2004), pp. 135-157.

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January - February 2015

The truth of the Catholic Church, its divinity, its uniqueness, what
authorizes us to assert that outside of it there is no salvation, is
demonstrated or confirmed by its fundamental characteristics, by the
distinctive notes, or marks, that we have been proclaiming since the fourth
century in the Nicene Creed: “Credo unam, sanctam, catholicam, et
apostolicam Ecclesiam.”
The marks of the Church are visible signs for everyone. Since its
foundation, the Church has been one and undivided in its doctrine,
sacraments, and government; it is holy, pure, and spotless, never sinful
though composed of sinners; it is catholic, that is to say, universal, destined
to spread throughout the world the baptism instituted by Christ, sole cause
of our salvation; it is apostolic because founded on the uninterrupted
succession of its pastors from St. Peter and the Apostles to the present day.1
The Catechism of St. Pius X succinctly states: “The Church of Jesus Christ
is the Roman Catholic Church, because it alone is one, holy, catholic, and
apostolic as He intended” (Q. 107). And during the Regina Caeli of May 27,
2007, Pope Benedict XVI recalled these marks, and added that the Church
also has the essential attribute of being “Roman.”

2

Eugenio Pacelli, Discourse
of February 24, 1936, in
Discorsi e Panegirici
(Milan: Vita e Pensiero,
1939), pp. 510, 509-14.

3

Tacitus, Hist., 2, 32.

4

Orazio, Od., 4, 3, 13.

5

Tibullus, Carm., 2, 5, 29.

6

Titus Livius, Ab urbe
condita, 1, n. 16.

7

Dante, Purgatorio, 32, 102.

The one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church is the Roman Church. Yet
the quality of being Roman is something more than and different from a
mark of the Church: it is the actualization of these marks, their concrete and
historical abridgment: in the word Roman is summed up, so to speak, the
visible face of the Mystical Body of Christ. That is why people used to speak
of the Holy Roman Church, and we ought to continue to do so. The term
Roman places the Church in time and space, in a place and an historical
context.
But in what way is the Church Roman? And what importance does it have
for us today?

Rome: A Word Wrapped Up in Mystery
The name Roman Church associates two different realities. The word
Roman evokes an historical reality: a city, a civilization, an empire which
had a beginning and an end in time. The word Church summons up a
supernatural reality plunged in history but belonging to eternity. The link
between the two words is nonetheless intimate and indissoluble. It is an
intimate and mysterious relationship established not by men but by Divine
Providence.
In a lecture held on February 24, 1936, at the Institute of Roman Studies
on the “sacred vocation of Rome,” Eugenio Pacelli, then cardinal, said that
Rome is a “mysterious word” and spoke of the “city with its feet in the pagan
regions of the Tiber and in the tunnels of the catacombs, and its head raised
and hidden in the stars, to bow before the throne of God.”2
Tacitus said of Rome that it was the “caput rerum”;3 Horace called it the
“princeps urbium”;4 Tibullus, “aeterna urbs”;5 Livy, “caput orbis terrarum.”6
The city that ruled the world bowed its head before the throne of God and
became the seat of the universal Chair of Peter, destined to a spiritual reign.
The pagan caput mundi became the Eternal City, the city “onde Cristo
è romano—where Christ is Roman,” which Dante evokes in the Divine
Comedy.7
How and when did this historical transformation come about?
Some historians and modernist theologians like Auguste Sabatier and
Adolf von Harnack attempted to respond to this question. For them, it was
because of the prestige of the capital of the Roman Empire that the bishop
of Rome became the bishop of all the churches. The primacy of the Roman
Pontiff would then be a consequence of the grandeur of the Roman Empire.
The still recurrent modernist thesis originates in the theological debate of
the first millennium between the Roman Church and the Greek Church and
already appears in Canon 28 of the Council of Chalcedon (451), suppressed
by St. Leo the Great. The Oriental Churches recognized the primacy of Rome
as an honorific supremacy from the fact that Rome had been the capital of
the Roman Empire. With the fall of the Roman Empire in the West and the
transfer of the “new Rome” to Constantinople, the primacy also would have
passed to the Patriarch of this city.
The condemnation of this thesis was reiterated by St. Pius X in the
Decree Lamentabilis annexed to the Encyclical Pascendi (1907). In this
11

Theme Romanitas
8

“Ecclesia romana non
ex divinae providentiae
ordinatione, sed ex mere
politicis condicionibus
caput omnium Ecclesiarum
effecta est.” Lamentabili,
Prop. 56, Dz. 2056.

document, the pope anathematizes the following proposition: “The Roman
Church became the head of all the churches not by the ordinances of divine
Providence, but purely by political factors.”8 The error consists in founding
the jurisdiction of the Church on a primacy of a political nature. In reality,
the choice of Rome as the seat of the Chair of St. Peter did not occur because
of the greatness and the authority of ancient Rome, but because Rome was
the place where St. Peter, upon whom Christ conferred universal primacy,
exercised his ministry. Had St. Peter stayed at Antioch and died there, the
Bishops of Antioch would have had the same authority as that now held by
the Bishops of Rome. Rome would have been an historic city, the center of
a great diocese, but nothing more, and the Catholic Church could not have
called itself Roman.
It was by a disposition of divine Providence that Peter chose Rome for his
Episcopal see. Here, in the Circus of Nero, he endured martyrdom: beneath
the central point of the cupola his burial place was and is to be found. His
successors, the popes, have carried on his commission to the present day.
Christian Rome, then, derives its greatness from the martyrdom of
Peter and not from the power of the Empire. Then again, the Patriarch of
Constantinople, while denying the religious primacy of Rome in the name of
the political primacy that the new Rome exercised in the world, introduced
the right of the Byzantine Emperor to interfere in ecclesiastical affairs to
the point of transforming the Patriarch of Constantinople into a veritable
religious pro-consul. From then on, submission of religion to politics came to
characterize the entire history of “Orthodoxy.”

Christian Rome and Pagan Rome
A second question then arises: Why did Divine Providence designate
Rome, and not some other city, as the place of the ministry and death of the
Prince of the Apostles?
Numerous Christian authors have treated of this subject: St. Augustine’s
City of God originated from a meditation on this very theme. No one offers
as good a synthesis of his thought as a disciple of the Doctor of Hippo, St.
Prosper of Aquitaine (ca. 390-463): “We believe that Divine Providence
predisposed the Roman Empire in its extension so that the nations that
would be called to the unity of the Body of Christ would have first been
united by the law of a sole Empire, even if the grace of God is not limited to
the borders of Rome.”
The grace of God extends well beyond the frontiers of the Roman Empire
because the commandment of Jesus Christ is to preach the gospel to all
nations from one end of the earth to the other (Mk. 29:19). But since grace
presupposes nature, God predisposed a natural framework propitious for the
propagation and reception of His Word. This historical and legal framework
was the Roman Empire.
Rome appeared in the Mediterranean basin as the city destined to unify
the world to prepare it for the diffusion of Christianity. The great consular
roads over which the Roman Legions marched opened the way for the
preachers of the gospel; the Latin language became the universal and sacred
12

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9

Pius XII, Discorsi e
Radiomessaggi (Rome: Tip.
Poliglotta Vaticana, 1950),
Vol. X, p. 357.

language of the Church; Roman law served as the juridical basis for the
canon law of the Church and the common law of the West. And yet Rome,
the cradle and the fatherland of universal law, became guilty of the greatest
injustice in history: the trial and condemnation of Jesus Christ. After
condemning Jesus to death, the Roman Empire, which had accepted into
the Pantheon all the religions of the earth, refused the Truth of the gospel
and persecuted the nascent Church in a way it had never before treated the
numerous sects that thronged there. This is what sealed its doom. The cause
of the decadence and fall of the Roman Empire does not lie in Christianity,
as many historians even now still assert, but in its rejection of the word of
Truth and Life that Christianity announced.
The history of the Church at its beginning can be looked at as the struggle
between two Romes: pagan Rome, which sought to destroy Christianity,
and Christian Rome, which vanquished the greatest political and military
power history had every known with the arms of truth and charity alone. No
other empire equaled the splendor of the Roman Empire. It seemed created
to last for millennia, even if it was also subject to the laws of time and
history. Of pagan Rome today there remain only ruins. That is the law of all
things human and terrestrial: the great successes and worldly triumphs are
followed in even more rapid succession by decadence, disaggregation, and
death. Pius XII reminded us of this when he said: “Whenever we pass by the
monuments of our Christian past, however ancient they may be, we always
feel something immortal: the faith they announce still lives, indefinitely
multiplied by the number of those who profess it; the Church to which they
belong still lives, ever the same through the centuries.”9

St. Peter’s Baldachin over the high altar of St. Peter’s Basilica. Designed by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

13

Theme Romanitas
To Emperor Constantine in the fourth century belongs the merit of having
reconciled Rome with Christianity, of being the Father of an era that was to
absorb the cultural and institutional heritage of Rome, grafting onto it the
spirit and law of the gospel and offering humanity a bond, not only external,
as had been imposed by the lex romana, but also interior and spiritual.
The same Constantine, by transferring the capital of the Empire to
the shores of the Bosporus nonetheless compromised the unity, even
geographical, between Rome and the Christianity he had authorized in
313 by the Edict of Milan. Yet even in this, Constantine was unconsciously
the instrument of Divine Providence. There was not room in Rome for two
Empires: a Christian empire and a terrestrial Empire. If the Roman Empire
had not fallen, nascent Christianity would have been crushed. The Holy
Roman Empire was inaugurated by the coronation of Charlemagne at Rome
on Christmas night in the year 800 by Pope St. Leo III, but the emperors
never resided at Rome, which remained the holy city reserved for the Chair
of St. Peter.
St. Leo the Great (440-461) played the leading role in the Romanization of
Christianity that developed in the fifth century while the Western Roman
Empire was collapsing. He made a statement like that of St. Prosper of
Aquitaine, whose contemporary and friend he was: “God took care that the
peoples were united in a single Empire of which Rome was the head in order
that from her the light of Truth, revealed for the salvation of the nations,
might be more effectively diffused in all of its members.”
Leo was the great protagonist of his century, the fifth century, which
saw the definitive fall of the Roman Empire. No one had as he did the full
awareness of the inexorable decline of Rome, but also of the rise of a new
Rome whose empire would be much more vast and glorious than the former.
During the course of the long centuries of anarchy between the fall of the
Roman Empire and the birth of the Holy Roman Empire in a Europe overrun
by the barbarians and torn by internal conflicts, only the papacy remained
standing in all its majesty. Society was then a seething magma in which there
was no longer anything stable or permanent. In this crucible the Apostolic
See was consolidated as the homogeneous center of government and
jurisdiction, but also as the focal point of a nascent civilization.
In the question of the Summa Theologica dedicated to the birth of Christ,
St. Thomas asks why the Saviour was born at Bethlehem and not at Rome.
And here is what the Angelic Doctor replies:
“According to a sermon in the Council of Ephesus [P. iii, cap. ix]: ‘If He had
chosen the great city of Rome, the change in the world would be ascribed
to the influence of her citizens. If He had been the son of the Emperor, His
benefits would have been attributed to the latter’s power. But that we might
acknowledge the work of God in the transformation of the whole earth, He
chose a poor mother and a birthplace poorer still.’
“ ‘But the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound
the strong’ (1 Cor. 1:27). And therefore, in order the more to show His power,
He set up the head of His Church in Rome itself, which was the head of the
world, in sign of His complete victory, in order that from that city the faith
might spread throughout the world; according to Isaias 26:5-6: ‘The high city
He shall lay low...the feet of the poor,’ i.e. of Christ, ‘shall tread it down; the
14

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10

Summa Theologica, III, Q.
35, Art. 7 ad 3.

11

St. Catherine of Siena,
Letter 347 to Count Alberico
da Balbiano, ivi, p. 169 (pp.
165-169).

12

St. Catherine of Siena,
Letter 370 to Urban VI, ivi,
p. 272 (pp. 270-273).

13

St. Clement of Rome, Ai
Corinti, cap. 5 & 6 in PG, 1,
coll. 217-221.

14

DS 363-365

15

DS 1307.

16

DS 999

17

DS 3059, 3073; Dz. 1826,
1839.

18

DS 363-365.

19

DS 1307.

20

DS 3065.

steps of the needy,’ i.e. of the apostles Peter and Paul.”10
In light of this we can understand how St. Catherine of Siena, Patroness
of Italy, writing to Pope Gregory XI to urge him to return to Rome as to his
rightful see, ardently affirmed: “Think that this land is the garden of the
blessed Christ and the source [principe]of our faith.”11 “Here is to be found
the head and source [principe] of our faith.”12

The Roman Primacy
Rome had exercised its political hegemony over the world; the Roman
Pontiff extended the law of the gospel over the world. The Church’s power
of jurisdiction which replaced that of pagan Rome was expressed from the
early centuries in the doctrine of the Roman primacy.
Catholic doctrine on the primacy of Peter and the jurisdiction of the
Roman Pontiff, expounded already by St. Clement, the third pope, at the end
of the first century,13 was defined in the Second Council of Lyons in 1274,14 at
the Council of Florence in 1439,15 in the Professio fidei Tridentina,16 and, to
finish, was solemnly affirmed by the First Vatican Council in the Dogmatic
Constitution Pastor Aeternus (July 18, 1870).
When one speaks about the First Vatican Council, generally the only thing
being referred to is the dogma of papal infallibility. In point of fact, Pastor
Aeternus first establishes that the primacy of the pope consists not only in
honorary pre-eminence over the other bishops and faithful, but in a veritable
supreme power of jurisdiction, independent of any other power, over all the
pastors and over the whole flock.
In Pastor Aeternus of Vatican I, Chapter 3, the definition of the Council of
Florence (Sept. 4, 1439) was solemnly renewed, by which all Christians must
believe “ ‘that the Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff hold primacy over
the whole world, and that the Pontiff of Rome himself is the successor of the
blessed Peter, the chief of the apostles, and is the true vicar of Christ and
head of the whole Church and faith, and teacher of all Christians; and that to
him was handed down in blessed Peter, by our Lord Jesus Christ, full power
to feed, rule, and guide the universal Church, just as is also contained in the
records of the ecumenical Councils and in the sacred canons.’ ”17
The foundation of papal sovereignty does not consist, then, in the charisma
of infallibility conferred by Christ on Peter alone as head of the Church and to
the Apostolic College united to Peter; but it consists in the apostolic primacy
the pope possesses over the universal Church as the successor of Peter and
prince of the Apostles. This primacy comprises also the power of teaching
as it was defined by the fourth Council of Constantinople,18 by the Council of
Florence, 19 and then by the First Vatican Council.20
The pope is not infallible in the exercise of his power of government: the
disciplinary laws of the Church, unlike divine and natural laws, can change.
Papal infallibility has a single object, faith and morals, that can only be
exercised according to determined conditions. But the monarchical and
hierarchical constitution of the Church which confides plenary sovereignty
to the Roman Pontiff is of divine faith and thus guaranteed by the seal of
infallibility.
15

Theme Romanitas

AntiRomanism
by Robert de Mattei

During the course of history the enemies of the Church have attacked
the Roman primacy by seeking to separate Christianity from Rome. If
Romanitas is the outstanding, distinctive note of the Church, anti-Romanism
can be considered the distinctive characteristic of her enemies. After the
great Eastern Schism, between the fifteenth and the twentieth century, the
dissociation of Rome from Christianity advanced along two often intersecting
or convergent lines: on the one hand, an attempt to de-Romanize Christianity
as occurred with Protestantism and then modernism; on the other hand,
an attempt to de-Christianize the Roman spirit, as occurred with secular
humanism, the French Revolution, and the neo-paganism of the twentieth
century.
The pagan, or secular, humanism of the Renaissance and the French
Revolution countered Christian Rome with the myth of Roman antiquity,
whether republican or imperial. On the other hand, Protestantism and
modernism saw in Christianity’s link with Rome, understood as the
Constantinian dimension of the Church, the cause of its degeneration. Even
Italy, the seat of the papacy, underwent its own revolution after 1789. During
what is called the Risorgimento, or Italian Revolution, we see the convergence
16

The Angelus

January - February 2015

1

Giuseppe Mazzini, Note
autobiografiche (Milan:
Rizzoli, 1986), p. 382.

2

Vincenzo Gioberti,
Rinovamento civile d’Italia
(Bologna, 1943), Vol. II, p.
237.

3

Ernesto Buonaiuti, Il
modernismo cattolico
(Modena: Guanda, 1944), p.
128.

4

Msgr. Emile De Smedt,
Bishop of Bruges. Cf. Acta
Synodalia, I/4, pp. 356 ff.

5

Abbé Victor A. Berto, Pour
la sainte Eglise romaine:
Textes et documents (Paris:
DMM, 1976), p. 19.

of the two tendencies: the reaffirmation of Christianity without Rome and of
Rome without Christianity.
De-Romanization was expressed as a reform of the Church, a purification of
its links with the temporal order. That was the position of Gioberti, who, in his
Rinnovamento civilie d’Italia, asserted that the suppression of its temporal
power was the necessary condition of the regeneration of the Church. The
de-Christianization of Rome was advanced by authors like Giuseppe Mazzini,
who made of Rome the symbol of the renewal of humanity: “For me,” he wrote
in 1864, “Rome was, and still is in spite of its present abject state, the Temple of
humanity. From Rome will emerge the religious transformation that will for the
third time impart to Europe its moral unity.”1
This broad array of revolutionary forces, from the Renaissance to “Catholic”
liberalism and to democratic radicalism, found their catalyst in the myth of
a Rome “regenerated” and “reformed” because freed of the civil power of the
Roman Pontiff.2
For the artisans of the Risorgimento, the transformation of the papacy
meant the achievement of a philosophical and religious revolution analogous
to that of Protestantism, which Italy had not undergone, and which ought to
accompany the process of national unification. This is what constitutes the
heart of what is referred to as “the Roman Question.”
For the artisans of the Risorgimento, the termination of the temporal power
of the popes should not be reduced to the achievement of the geopolitical
unification of Italy with Rome as its capital, but ought to be considered as an
event of a philosophical and religious nature, something which constitutes the
thematic thread and the symbolic achievement of national unification, which
was celebrated in 2011.
The Lateran Accord of 1929 seemed to bring the Roman Question to a close,
but a new “Roman question” exploded within the Church itself during Vatican
II. “Till now,” wrote one of the Fathers of modernism, Ernesto Buonaiuti,
“people have wanted to reform Rome without Rome, or even against Rome. But
Rome needs to be reformed with the help of Rome, in such wise that the reform
passes through the hands of those who have to be reformed. Here is the best,
fail-proof method. But it will not be easy—Hic opus, hic labor.”3
Among the Council Fathers and theologians of Central Europe who flocked
to Rome in 1962 in order to “bring the Church up to date,” an anti-Roman party
took shape which seemed to be inspired by Buonaiuti’s words. In the conciliar
assemblies, a Central European bishop decried three errors he perceived in the
schema De Ecclesia, prepared by the Roman theological commission according
to traditional doctrine: Roman triumphalism, clericalism, and legalism. This
triptych sums up the anti-Romanism animating this faction.4
For the historian today, it appears obvious that the attack against the Roman
Curia launched in the Council aula and the press during and after the Council
concealed in fact an attack on the primacy of Rome. The Roman Curia, a
term used to designate the dicasteries and organizations that assist the pope
in the governance of the Church, is essentially the successor of the ancient
presbyterium of the Bishops of Rome, of which it represents the homogeneous
and authentic development. Thus it is not merely an administrative organ,
but the highest “position” of the Church.5 The Curia is first and foremost
constituted by the cardinals who hold their rank because they belong to
17

Theme Romanitas
6

Yves Congar, Council
Diary [Italian version] (San
Paolo: Cinisello Balsamo,
2005), Vol. II, p. 20.

7

Pius XII, Discorsi e
Radiomessaggi (Rome: Tip.
Poliglotta Vaticana, 1950),
Vol. X, p. 358-9.

the clergy of the local Church of Rome, and it is precisely in their quality
as members of the Roman clergy that they elect the pope. The pope-elect,
precisely because he is the Bishop of Rome, is immediately the successor of
St. Peter in the primacy, the Vicar of Christ. The pope is pope because he is
the Bishop of Rome and as the Bishop of Rome he is the bishop of the Roman
clergy that elects him pope.
The Roman Curia had always been the longa mana of the pope, his tool.
During Vatican II, the anti-Roman party succeeded in separating the Curia from
the pope by striking at the Roman government, accused of triumphalism and
centralism; by frontally attacking Roman theology, described in its newspaper
by a French theologian who would subsequently be named cardinal, as “a
miserable, ultramontane ecclesiology”;6 and by dismantling the Roman liturgy
that was the expression of this theology.
Today the Roman spirit of the Church resides especially in our hearts, in
which still resound the words Pius XII addressed to the students of Rome on
January 31, 1949:
“If one day (and We are only expressing an hypothesis) the city of Rome
should fall and the ruins of this Vatican Basilica, symbol of the one holy
Catholic Church, invincible and victorious, should bury the historical treasures
and the sacred tombs it houses, even then the Church would be neither beaten
nor broken. The promise of Christ to St. Peter would be ever true. Its nature

8

Pope Benedict XVI, Address
at Regensburg University,
September 12, 2006.

and its truth would carry on the papacy, the unique and indestructible Church
founded on the pope living at that moment. Eternal Rome, in the supernatural
Christian sense, is superior to historical Rome. Its nature and its truth do not
depend on it.”7

Tragedy and Hope of the Present Hour
The age in which we are now living recalls that of Europe between the fifth
and the eighth century. We are living in a world in ruins. The idol of Modernity,
built at the expense of so much blood in the twentieth century, is collapsing,
and the cultural and moral wreckage are all around us. Yet there stands a stone
that cannot be eradicated because it constitutes the cornerstone of a Temple
that defies the passage of time. This stone is at Rome, the place chosen by
Divine Providence for the seat of the Prince of the Apostles and his successors.
Benedict XVI, in his famous speech at Regensburg, spoke of an attempted
“de-Hellenization” of the Church.8 Today an analogous attempt at “deRomanization” is under way, namely, the dissolution of the juridical structure
of the Mystical Body of Christ. This attempted de-Romanization is taking place
within the Church itself, and it is within it that we have to fight it.
The process of the de-Romanization of the papacy has accelerated since

Theme Romanitas
9

20

Rev. Mariano Cordovani,
O.P., “Romanità della
Chiesa,” in Roma Nobilis:
L’idea, la missione, le
memorie, e il destino di
Roma, ed. Igino Cecchetti
(Rome, Edas, 1953), pp.
103-111.

The Angelus

January - February 2015

February 11, 2013, the date of Benedict XVI’s resignation from the supreme
pontificate: an extraordinary act that has changed the history of the Church.
Its exceptional character lies not only in the fact of the resignation, a legitimate
act per se although extraordinary because it was the first time it had happened
in six hundred years, but because of the disproportion between the exceptional
nature of the act and the banality of the reasons given to justify it.
The exceptional character of the resignation is augmented by the exceptional
character of the events that followed. Pope Benedict took the title of pope
emeritus and continues to wear the white cassock, giving the impression that
he continues to be the pope in some way. And it constitutes an exceptional
event because it has clouded the horizon.
The process of de-Romanization has continued with the election of Pope
Francis, who, from the outset of his pontificate, has styled himself the “Bishop
of Rome” without adverting to the fact that the pope is first of all the Vicar of
Christ and the Successor of St. Peter. In the gestures, words, and silences of
Pope Francis everything proceeds along the line of a desacralization of the
institution, that is to say, a loss of the Romanitas of the Church.
In the Roman pontificate, the Church has possessed from its origin a
center of gravity: a visible, unitary principle of order and conduct embodied
in the Vicar of Christ, the pope. Rome is not only the geographical center of
Christianity, but the place where the ultimate truths necessary for the salvation
of man and the essential values of Western Civilization are safeguarded.
The authority of the Roman See guarantees unity, which is broken
every time that peoples or individuals withdraw from its governance and
magisterium. It makes possible sanctity, as the fruitful coherence of the lives of
the members of the Church with the faith and morals they profess; it achieves
universality in its unifying mission; and, finally, it assures apostolicity in the
succession that goes from St. Peter to Pope Francis and in the link between
every episcopal see and that of Rome.9
The Church is not a confederation of Christian Communities or of episcopal
conferences professing different or even contradictory doctrines under the
honorary presidency of the pope. What characterizes the Church is not only
its power of sanctifying souls by the administration of the sacraments; it is not
only its power to guide them to the truth by its immutable magisterium, but it is
also the power to govern them by its laws and institutions under the authority
of the Roman Pontiff.
The word Rome especially evokes the visible and institutional dimension of
the Church; the adjective Roman does not restrict the vocation of the Church
to a certain time or place, but broadens it and qualifies it as the bearer of
tidings of a supernatural salvation that is inseparable from its governance and
law and which has in the Roman Pontiff its highest expression.
Today we are not only called to defend the Roman primacy, but the Eternal
Rome that makes it possible.
We are called to defend Romanitas, which is the juridical and institutional
dimension of the Church, the canonical framework that encompasses and
supports its doctrine. We are called to defend the Roman liturgy, which is the
tangible expression of this doctrine because the law of prayer corresponds to
the law of faith. But especially we are called to proclaim and to live “the Roman
spirit,” which is the capacity to reach the invisible through the visible, through

10

Louis Veuillot, Le Parfum
de Rome (Victor Palmé,
1871) [online at openlibrary.
org].

11

Roma Nobilis, quoted
by Veuillot, op. cit., p. 90.
[Historical information,
from The Holy Year of
Jubilee: An Account of the
History and Ceremonial
of the Roman Jubilee by
Herbert Thurston, S.J.
(London: Sands & Co.,
1900). The Hymn was
discovered by G. B. Niebuhr
in Vatican MS. 3227 of
the eleventh century and
assigned by him t

that special atmosphere with which Rome is penetrated and which is only
breathed at Rome.
Louis Veuillot called it “the perfume of Rome”10 —a natural and a
supernatural perfume that emanates from the stones and memories heaped up
in this sacred ground on which Providence set St. Peter’s Chair.
The Roman spirit is the “sensus ecclesiae”—the perception of the evils that
attack the Church, the unshakable fidelity to what this City represents, the love
and veneration of all the treasures of faith and tradition this City encloses. This
“sensus ecclesiae,” this Roman spirit that has filled the hearts of all pilgrims
who over the centuries have contemplated Rome felix et nobilis: “Roma Felix,”
sung during Vespers of the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul, the composition of
which is attributed to a Sicilian poetess, Elpis, who according to some was the
first wife of Boethius. “Roma nobilis,” noble Rome, fervently saluted from the
earliest centuries by the pilgrims who traveled there, praised in the words of a
canticle that has come down to us as the queen of the world, red with the blood
of martyrs, white with the lilies of virgins:
O Roma nobilis, orbis et domina,
Cunctarum urbium excellentissima
Roseo martyrum sanguine rubea,
Albi et virginum liliis candida,
Salutem dicimus tibi per omnia,
Te benedicimus, salve per saecula.11
In the anxious days in which we live, and which we can only expect to
continue, we ought to be once again pilgrims in spirit who lift up their eyes to
Roma nobilis et felix, whence shines an undying light. It will appear to us as
the city of Sion beheld by Isaias: “I will not be forgetful of thee. Why, I have cut
thy image on the palms of my hands: those walls of thine dwell before my eyes
continually” (Is. 49:15-16, Knox version).
These words are also traditionally applied to the Blessed Virgin Mary, but
no other city can consider itself dearer to her than Rome. Throughout history,
no city has honored the Madonna as Rome has in her basilicas, churches, and
monuments. Images of Mary are enshrined in thousands of places—in streets
and plazas, on palace walls, and on city towers and clocks. These Madonnas
wept miraculously in 1796 just before the commencement of the Jacobin
invasion, when a “liberty pole” was set up at Rome, the Republic proclaimed,
and Pope Pius VI exiled.
How much more, then, ought these images to weep at this historical moment
when the Eternal City is occupied by agents within intent upon her destruction.
The nineteenth-century revolutionaries only succeeded in stripping her of
her material treasures: gold, silver, paintings, archives. Today she has been
stripped of her spiritual treasures, starting with her liturgy.
Our gaze naturally turns to Mary, Mother of the Church, and it is there that
the answer to the drama of our times can be found. There is to be found the
strength and confidence within us. We do indeed live in a tragic age, but as
Veuillot wrote, we are awaiting chastisement, not death. We are awaiting not
death, but life, the life that can only come from Rome, supernatural source and
center of the certain resurrection of the Church.
21

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Roman
Impressions
by several U.S. pilgrims

This is an interview with some pilgrims who
discovered the Eternal City for the first time
and expose their diverse sentiments felt on the
few days spent there.

The Angelus: Were there any particular
reasons which led you to go to Rome?
Pilgrim: For us, the visit of Rome was a
pilgrimage of thanksgiving to St. Pius X. We
had never been to Rome and wished to go to St.
Peter’s and be able to kneel down at the tomb of
St. Pius X.
I myself, as a Catholic, was anxious to visit
Eternal Rome, yet was privately convinced that
no place could compare to my experience of
the beauty and history of Catholic France two
summers previous.

The Angelus: And what were your first
impressions as you landed?
Pilgrim: Our rough landing in the midst of a
rainstorm was perhaps a fitting introduction to
the Vatican City of today. We were to lodge across
the street from St. Peter’s. So I imagined being
greeted by the welcoming arms of its colonnade
as seen so often in photos. Not realizing we were
approaching from behind, how shocking was our
first view of the Vatican—a tall, ancient, dirty,
and very grim wall. “This is it?!” An incredibly
long line of tourists were wrapped around this
wall awaiting entrance to the museum. “How
would we ever see anything in this city with such
long lines?” When the taxi deposited us before
a great iron gate in another formidable wall,
behind which was to be our lodging for five days,
I thought: “How could Father Iscara fall in love
23

Faith and Morals
with the ‘beauty’ of this place?”
For me, the first impact was different. At the
view of Rome, I felt that the Catholicism which I
experienced in the United States was deepened
because I could see visually and experience by
being there the faith that goes back much longer
in time. The faith was made more real because
you see that the roots were deeper than what you
know here.
The Angelus: What was the second
impression once the first had died down?
Pilgrim: After this initial intimidating
experience of endless walls, iron gates, and lost
luggage, we had a chance to walk around. We
did see the colonnades of St. Peter’s early the
next morning, and they were welcoming. The
doors were open, and there was no crowd. We
entered and beheld Michelangelo’s Pieta. All dark
thoughts melted away.
Walking the narrow cobble-stone streets
between the high walls one wondered, “Where do
all these people live?” Then, here and there, an
open gate revealed beautiful hidden courtyard
gardens. “So this is where they live; there is
beauty here.” What a contrast to the narrow,
littered streets and noisy crowds these walls
served to shut out.
Once inside, marble was everywhere; so
many varied patterns and colors, one would
have expected them to war with one another,
and yet the architecture, the colors, the works
of art, the paintings were in perfect harmony
and proportion. This was surprising since so

much was added and changed down through the
centuries.
The Angelus: In your estimation, what
defines Rome?
Pilgrim: A mixture of old civilization and
Christianity built upon it. A city of churches. The
conquest of Christianity over the pagan citystate. And yet how they coexist. Pagan temples
were transformed into basilicas, as in the case
of the Pantheon dedicated to Saint Mary and the
Martyrs.
One happens upon an open door on a crowded
street. It is the side entrance to a magnificent
parish church. One walks a little further and
comes upon a Roman ruin—perhaps Trajan’s
Arch or the Forum. It is much like stepping
into and out of the pages of a history book of
the earliest civilizations to the present time. It
is amazing how all this history still draws the
human heart. The many visitors come to see
the ruins; but in doing so, they are exposed
to more. The Coliseum is where the Christian
martyrs were eaten by wild beasts. St. Peter, and
possibly St. Paul, was incarcerated in the ancient
Mamertine prison. Peter walked the Appian Way.
Mass was offered in the Catacombs.
The Angelus: Would you say that Rome
defines the Church?
Pilgrim: “Where Peter is, there is the Church.”
Rome embodies the faith in its 480 plus churches
and in its every part. It was hard for us to make
a distinction between Vatican City and the City

Main façade of St. Peter’s Basilica, designed by Carlo Maderno with some of the 140 statues produced by the workshop of Gian Lorenzo Bernini

of Rome itself. The walls of Vatican City seemed
to envelop the whole of Rome. The bones of St.
Peter are buried there under the high altar of St.
Peter’s. Going to Rome is going home. Yes, Father
Iscara, we were falling helplessly in love with
Rome.
The Angelus: What impressed you most
regarding the Roman art?
Pilgrim: The Pieta was very moving for me,
but too far away to fully appreciate. Now I want
to devour books that explain the details of this
work of art. Unfortunately, many tourist groups
were there for cultural purposes alone, and being
alien to Catholicism, needed a tour guide to
explain who Our Lady was and who the Son she
was holding.
How impressive are the mosaics that cover in
beauty so many of the walls of the churches of

Michelangelo’s dome rises above
the façade of Maderno.

Rome. They rival those of Ravenna, especially
some in the oldest Roman churches of St.
Praxedes and St. Lawrence which we visited.
The elaborate paintings depict the history and
the period of the church—like the meeting of
Attila the Hun and Pope Leo I or the Battle of
Constantine on Milvian Bridge.
The dome of St. Peter’s and its massive statues
are impressive. The Bernini columns are quite
powerful, although I do not care much for the
twisted columns of the Baldaquino. I am more
drawn to simple Romanesque statues and early
Christian and Gothic art.
The Angelus: Is it right to say that the
monumental Rome was the work of the Popes?
Pilgrim: Rome is the Catholic Church; it is
Christianity. How much the Popes invested in
the street arches on the corners as well as in

St. Paul Outside the Walls: The 18th-century reproduction of the mosaic
in the apse shows Christ in judgment flanked by SS. Peter and Paul.

Faith and Morals
the different shrines for the sake of teaching the
faith. The beauty of the churches is all for God,
for the Mass; they spared nothing to procure
the best art and sculpture for the Mass. It took
years to do it, and the most gifted artists were
employed. They had been working in other
cities and then came to Rome and accomplished
such wonders without present-day technology.
Learning the dates of the different edifices was
fascinating; some buildings took centuries to
complete and yet displayed such harmony.
Among the major basilicas, I prefer St.
Mary Major, a smaller building, yet ornate and
handsome with its circular mosaics. St. Paul
Outside the Walls was a delight as it was not
crowded among other buildings and did not
require maintenance like much older buildings.
One notices the differences between the
churches of France and Rome. The French

churches are defined by an elevated Gothic style
and their beauty includes magnificent stainedglass windows. The Roman churches, on the
other hand, have little stained-glass. Instead their
walls are covered with beautiful frescoes. (My
7th and 8th grade students have just completed
miniature frescoes in art class. They have
learned to appreciate how hard it must have been
to paint a detailed picture on wet plaster before it
dries.) It is the difference between the Gothic and
the Romanesque style. Rome has no need of more
light and heat as does France.
The Angelus: Would you say that the Popes’
presence is felt in every corner of the City?
Pilgrim: The Popes are buried everywhere.
Everywhere the pilgrim turns, there is another
tomb of a pope with amazing marble or bronze
sculptures ornamenting the sarcophagi.

Doorway of the
Mamertine Prison
depicting SS. Peter and
Paul

Statue of St. Paul,
Forum, St. Peter’s
Basilica

St. Callixtus, Catacombs

One feels an overwhelming presence of the
history connected with the popes. St. Theresa
of Lisieux came here to have an audience with
the pope concerning her vocation. St. Francis of
Assisi exchanged clothes with a beggar and sat
before these doors of St. Peter’s, and later came
again to seek approval for his Friars Minor. St.
Philip Neri and St. Ignatius of Loyola walked the
dirty streets of Rome. And there are so many
papal relics here—St. Peter’s Chair, the bronze
St. Peter on his throne whose foot has been worn
thin by pilgrims’ veneration. St. Peter himself lies
beneath the main altar in the very place where he
suffered his martyrdom. Indeed, all of St. Peter’s
Basilica marks the spot. What a gift to be able to
experience the timelessness of the Eternal City
and look upon all these wonders and pray in the
very heart of Holy Mother Church.

Domes of
SS. Luke and
Martina

The Angelus: Did you regret not seeing the
Pope?
Pilgrim: As we passed Swiss Guards dressed
in traditional garb and stationed at every corner,
we wondered where the Pope actually was. I
did very much want to see Pope Francis—living
proof of the apostolicity and indefectibility of the
Church and Papacy that has already survived
2,000 years and will survive even him. But this
was not to be; yet I would not have traded seeing
the Pope for what we did see that day. I would
just have to content myself with looking at the
hundreds of waving bobble-head “Pope Franks”
next to the bobble-head “John Paul the Greats” at
all the souvenir stands—perhaps a sadly accurate
portrayal of the present papacy. We prayed for
him. Were he to draw closer to Eternal Rome, we
would be drawn closer to him.

Faith and Morals
The Angelus: Which were the relics of saints
you most enjoyed?
Pilgrim: The manger in St. Mary Major. The
sign at H. Cross of Jerusalem, the Inscription of
the Cross, relics of the nails and thorns, the finger
of St. Thomas. The table top of St. Peter at St.
John Lateran (with bust of two saints, St. Peter
and St. Paul). There were also the Holy Stairs
which we climbed on our knees. And then we saw
the instruments of torture, like the arrows of St.
Sebastian. And there was also the pillar of Our
Lord at St. Praxedes.
The Angelus: Which places did you relish
most?
Pilgrim: We made the long 3-mile walk along
the Appian Way to the catacombs, the same
road on which Our Risen Lord met Peter as he
was attempting an escape from Rome during
the persecutions. We passed the Quo Vadis
Chapel which marks the spot of this miraculous
meeting. How many saints had walked this road
feeling these cobblestones under their feet? It
was impressive to learn why the catacombs were
chosen as burial grounds. Crypts in multiple
levels could be carved out of volcanic ash quickly
and at the expense of little sweat. And there were
the actual reliefs and simple paintings of the
Good Shepherd that I had seen so often in books.
These date back to the earliest Christian times.
The Angelus: Could you say that the trip to
Rome helped you to grow spiritually?
Pilgrim: The Mass has much more meaning.
Now having visited the Seven Basilicas, we know
what it means in our missals when it states that
the station is at St. John Lateran, etc. It was
interesting to see the homes of some of these
saints: St. Praxedes, Sts. John and Paul, St. Agnes
in the Piazza Navona. One realizes that they were
everyday people.
We also visited and venerated most of the
saints mentioned in the Roman Canon of the
Mass: Sts. John and Paul, St. Lawrence, St. James
and Philip, St. Cecilia, Agnes, Lucy… During the
school year, when presenting the Saint of the Day
from the Roman calendar, I can say: “I was there,
I know where this happened,” and perhaps show
them a picture.
28

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January - February 2015

The Angelus: Was not taking pictures a
difficulty for you?
Pilgrim: We Americans take more pictures
than French people, perhaps even too many,
and sometimes even when a sign asks us not to.
(Rome belongs to all of us!) Maybe it is because
in America we are so bereft of truly beautiful
art, Christian culture, and Catholic history. It
is our way of capturing a piece of it and taking
it home with us to share with family, friends,
and students. A photo is more personal and a
step closer to the reality than a postcard or a
picture in a book. When others see them, they
are inspired to go to Rome too. Likewise it is
a tool for evangelizing. What Protestant is not
grateful to the Catholic Church for preserving
all the relics of the early Christians, the artwork
and architecture? Pictures of incorrupt bodies,
gruesome though some may be, make good
topics for conversation. Especially concerning
our veneration of the Saints and the subject of
miracles. We saw so many of them, like St. Cecilia
in Rome and St. Lucy in Venice.
The Angelus: What were your most moving
Roman moments?
Pilgrim: For me, it was certainly discovering
the scavi di San Pietro—the excavations of
St. Peter, initiated by Pius XII which led to the
discovery of the exact tomb and finally the bones
of St. Peter. It was especially welcome as I was
able to get an entrance within a few hours while
usually people have to reserve them six months
in advance.
As for me, I was very moved by our early Mass
at a side altar in St. Peter’s. We waited at the huge
sacristy till Father emerged, along with other
priests and altar boys to say Mass at the different
altars. Our dear Society priest was able to say the
old Mass at an altar in St. Peter’s! God is good. And
to participate intimately with Father and serving
Mass at St. Peter’s, any altar boy would like that!
We were also very lucky that, during all our stay in
Rome and Italy, we had the joy to hear Mass every
day in a proper church. It was a novena of Masses
to thank all those who had made it possible for
us to be there. My Dad always said: People make
pilgrimages to foreign shrines, what you should do
is to take care of going to Mass.

The Angelus: Did you have some negative
memories of Rome?
Pilgrim: For many tourists, the churches
seemed more like museums than places of
worship, yet they seemed to honor the silence.
I was edified by how many confessionals were
being used and how many Masses were being
said in the early morning in the many churches.
Probably one of the most frightening things
was a small scale model of the One World church
in the Gesu! it was frightening: all religions
there together—nauseating. It was something
we had heard about it, but to find it in the back
of a church where holy Jesuits are buried is
something else. It was a vast circle seamlessly
showing the buildings of all religions: the
mosques of Moslems, the synagogues of Jews, the
Shintoist temples along with the Catholic Church.
The message was clear: all paths lead, not to
Rome, but to God. “We are all saved.”
The Angelus: Would you share some of the
tips you learned for any pilgrim wishing to visit
Rome, or for your next Roman trip?
Pilgrim: We did enjoy a great location for our
hotel, near the entrance to the Vatican Museums.
It is a religious house with accommodations for
pilgrims, highly recommended, and we had use of
their chapel for Mass.
One thing I realized was that the Vatican
Museum tour becomes quite congested as one
approaches the Sistine Chapel, which is the
highlight of the tour. The signs to it led one on
an hour-long path, pushed by waves of tourists,
through a modern art gallery we would have
Altar donated by Czar Nicholas I, St. Paul Outside the Walls.

happily avoided. If you visit Rome during the
summer when it is overly crowded (as Florence
is), you had better purchase your Vatican Museum
tickets on-line in order to avoid the endless queue.
It did help to have the Angelus Press guide
book because in every corner of every church is
an often missed relic of a saint.
Another tip: if you take pictures, definitely take
the time to write down the church you are in and
even what you are taking a picture of. The dullest
pencil is sharper than the sharpest mind.
If we could do it again, we would try to
appreciate the things we were able to visit and
not regret the things we could not. We dreamed
that we could see all 900 churches within the
short span of four days! This first meeting with
the Eternal City is just the beginning of an
education; we have only just touched the barque.
It is an experience that will take time to draw
profit from and fully appreciate.

Faith and Morals

The Choice
of Rome
by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, extracts from Spiritual Journey

I believe I must add some words to draw the
attention of our priests and our seminarians to
the indisputable fact of the Roman influences on
our spirituality, on our liturgy, and even on our
theology.
One cannot deny that this is a providential
fact. God, who leads all things, has in His infinite
wisdom prepared Rome to become the Seat of
Peter and center for the radiation of the Gospel.
Hence the adage: Onde Cristo è Romano.
Dom Guéranger, in his Histoire de sainte
Cécile, recounts the great part which members
of great Roman families played in the foundation
of the Church, giving their goods and their blood
for the victory and the reign of Jesus Christ. Our
Roman liturgy is the faithful witness of this.
Romanitas is not a vain word. The Latin
language is an important example. It has brought
30

The Angelus

January - February 2015

the expression of the Faith and of Catholic
worship to the ends of the world. And the
converted people were proud to sing their Faith
in this language, a real symbol of the unity of the
Catholic Faith.
Schisms and heresies are often begun by a
rupture with Romanitas, a rupture with the
Roman liturgy, with Latin, with the theology of
the Latin and Roman Fathers and theologians.
It is this force of the Catholic Faith rooted
in Romanitas that Freemasonry wished to
eliminate by occupying the Pontifical States and
enclosing Catholic Rome in Vatican City. This
occupation of Rome by the Masons permitted
infiltration of the Church by Modernism and the
destruction of Catholic Rome by Modernist clergy
and Popes who hasten to destroy every vestige
of Romanitas: the Latin language, the Roman

“The Providential Choice of Rome as the Seat of Peter, and the Blessings of This Choice for the Growth of the Mystical Body of Our
Lord Jesus Christ” (Appendix III from Spiritual Journey of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre).

liturgy. The Slavic Pope is the most determined to
change the little which was kept by the Lateran
Treaty and the Concordat. Rome is no longer a
sacred city. He encourages the establishing of
false religions in Rome itself, accomplishing there
scandalous ecumenical meetings. He everywhere
pushes for “inculturation” in the liturgy, destroy­
ing the last vestiges of the Roman liturgy. He has
modified in practice the status of the Vatican
State. He has renounced coronation, thus
refusing to be a Head of State. This relentlessness
against Romanitas is an infallible sign of rupture
with the Catholic Faith that he no longer defends.
The Roman pontifical universities have become
chairs of Modernist pestilence. The coeducation
of the Gregorian is a perpetual scandal.
All must be restored in Christo Domino—in
Christ the Lord, in Rome as elsewhere.
Let us take delight in seeing how the paths
of Divine Providence and Wisdom pass through
Rome. Our conclusion will be that one cannot be
Catholic without being Roman. This applies also
to Catholics who have neither the Latin language
nor the Roman liturgy. If they remain Catholic,

it is because they remain Roman—like the
Maronites, for example, by the ties to the Catholic
and Roman French culture which formed them.
It is, moreover, an error to speak of Roman
culture as Western. The converts from Judaism
brought with them from the Orient all that was
Christian, all that which in the Old Testament
was preparation and could be a component
of Christianity, all that which Our Lord had
assumed and that the Holy Ghost had inspired
the apostles to adopt. How many times do the
epistles of St. Paul teach us on this subject!
God willed that Christianity, cast in a certain
way in the Roman mold, should receive from
it a vigorous and exceptional expansion. All is
grace in the divine plan, and Our Divine Savior
disposes everything as the Romans are said to
act, that is, cum consilio et patientia or suaviter
et fortiter—with counsel and patience, sweetly
and mightily (Wis. 8:1). Ours is the duty to guard
this Roman Tradition desired by Our Lord in the
same way that He wished us to have Mary as our
Mother.

31

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The Papal
Profession of
Faith
by Fr. Christopher Danel

When a Cardinal who is already consecrated a
bishop is elected to be the new Pope and accepts
his election, he becomes Bishop of Rome ipso
facto. This has always been the case in recent
centuries. But if the newly elected ecclesiastic
is not yet a bishop, as sometimes occurred in
earlier centuries of the Church, the protocol for
papal succession requires that he be consecrated
bishop immediately. This is done with unique
liturgical customs and with a triple Profession of
Faith made by the new Pope, that he will protect
and preserve the Catholic Faith, the laws of
the Church, and the liturgy of the Roman Rite.
While the Papal Profession of Faith may be the
most remarkable element of these ceremonies
in light of the current crisis in the Church, the
ceremonies as a whole are an intriguing glimpse
into the history and grandeur of Papal Rome.

The outline of the ceremonies is found in the
Liber Diurnus Romanum Pontificum (contained
in Patrologia Latina, 1864 ed., CV, 27 ff.). This
compendium of papal protocol dates to the
ninth century, but it contains rites from earlier
centuries (just as Pope St. Pius V’s 1570 edition
of the Roman Missal, for example, contains the
ancient liturgy of the Mass as used in the Roman
Rite through all of the preceding centuries).
The consecration ceremony and the diplomatic
requirements of papal succession are all given
under the title De Ordinatione Summi Pontificis
(Of the Ordination of the Sovereign Pontiff).
Regarding the diplomatic requirements, the
Liber Diurnus directs which officials within
the Roman Empire were to be informed of the
proceedings, and in what terms. After the death
of a Pope, an official announcement was
33

Faith and Morals
sent to the Exarch of Ravenna, who acted as
the ambassador to the western territories of
the Roman Emperor at Constantinople. (This
inclusion also fixes the date of this portion
of material of the Liber Diurnus, since the
Exarchate of Ravenna only lasted from A.D. 584
to 751, after Ravenna’s role as the capital of the
Western Empire, following the sack of Rome,
ended.) After the election of the new Pontiff, the
Decree of Election was to be drawn up according
to the form given in the compendium. It directs
that an official notice of the election be sent to
the Emperor of Constantinople, to the Exarch
of Ravenna, to the Archbishop of Ravenna,
and it provides the exact formulary for these
notifications. This concludes the diplomatic
procedure and the compendium then prescribes
the ceremony for consecrating the new Pope if he
is not already a bishop, and provides the texts for
the Papal Profession of Faith.
Though the seat of the papacy was then at the
Lateran Patriarchium, the consecration ceremony
takes place at the tomb of St. Peter in the Vatican
Basilica. By decree of St. Gregory the Great,
being consecrated bishop at the Papal altar at the
tomb of St. Peter (ad confessionem) is a privilege
reserved to the Roman Pontiff. The Liber
Diurnus directs the schola to sing the customary
Introit, which would be: “The Lord has chosen
thee to be the great Pontiff” (Elegit te Dominus
in Pontificem magnum, etc.). The Elect is led
in solemn procession from the sacristy, walking
amidst seven candlestick-bearers (cf. Apoc. 1:13)
to the aforementioned Papal altar, where he
makes his first profession of faith, as described
below. After the Kyrie eleison, the Bishop of
Albano reads a first prayer, then the Bishop of
Porto reads a second. (These two bishops come
from the “suburbicarian” dioceses surrounding
Rome which have long been held by the higher
ranking Cardinal-bishops. The principal
consecrator is the highest ranking of these, the
Bishop of Ostia.) The Evangeliarium, the book
of the Holy Gospels, is brought forward, opened,
and held over the head of the Elect. It is held in
this case by deacons rather than by bishops, who
normally fulfill this role. The Bishop of Ostia then
consecrates the Elect a bishop, with chrism and
the consecratory prayer, and the Archdeacon
34

The Angelus

January - February 2015

places upon him the pallium, the black and white
wool band worn around the shoulders by the
Pope and by the Patriarchs and Metropolitan
Archbishops in communion with him. After this,
the newly consecrated Bishop of Rome ascends
the steps to his throne to intone the Gloria in
excelsis Deo and celebrate the remainder of the
Mass. It is in fact a special prerogative of the
Roman Pontiff that, once consecrated, he himself
celebrates the Mass rather than celebrating on a
side altar as a newly consecrated bishop usually
does. After the conclusion of the Mass, the Pope
makes a second profession of faith, and in a
subsequent event, greets the faithful of Rome
and makes a third profession of faith before them
all. It is unclear if these professions of faith have
been used in history also by newly elected Popes
who were already consecrated bishops or if they
have been used only in conjunction with the
consecration ceremonies.
The first profession of faith corresponds in
its placement to the Iuramentum (oath) made
by a bishop-elect who is to be consecrated (cf.
Pontificale Romanum), and it is given more
weight. It is written out by the Pope in his own
hand, pronounced upon the tomb of St. Peter, and
officially notarized. It contains in brief all of the
principal elements that later appear in the second
and third ones. The second profession, and the
third in particular, elucidate in detail many of
the theological controversies of the preceding
centuries with all of their respective protagonists
and antagonists, while the first profession
succinctly limits itself to the doctrine, discipline,
and ritual to be protected and preserved. Thus
the text here presented is that of the primary of
these professions, the first. As to its date, certain
elements in the text itself allow it to be dated
to at least the end of the pontificate of Pope St.
Agatho (681), while the eminent 16th-century
liturgist Caesar Cardinal Baronius dates some
of its additional elements to A.D. 869, around the
time when the compilation of the Liber Diurnus
was completed. It is to be kept in mind, to avoid
misreading the text, that the profession is directed
to the Prince of the Apostles, Saint Peter, as it is
made upon his tomb and calls upon his assistance
for ruling the Apostolic See. What follows is an
exact translation from the original source.

The Papal Profession of Faith
“In the name of our God and Savior Jesus
Christ, etc. On N. day in N. month, I, N.N., by
the grace of God a priest [or Cardinal-Priest]
and by the mercy of God elected to be Pontiff of
the Apostolic See, make this profession to thee,
Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, to whom
the Creator and Redeemer of all, Our Lord Jesus
Christ, gave the keys to the kingdom of Heaven,
to bind and to loose in heaven and on earth,
saying, ‘Whatever thou shalt bind on earth shall
be bound in heaven; and whatever thou shalt
loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven,’ as I
today begin to reign thy holy Church, under thy
protection.
“I vow to preserve the rectitude of the Faith,
which I have, in my unworthiness, received
passed on from Christ through thy successors
and disciples in thy holy Church, and I vow to
preserve it with all my strength, even unto my
soul and my blood, even in difficult times, which I
will patiently endure with thy assistance.
“I vow to preserve the dogmas of the Church,
of the mystery of the holy and indivisible Trinity
Who is One God, of the incarnation of the Onlybegotten Son of God, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and
of all other dogmas of the Church, expounded
in the universal Councils, the Apostolic
constitutions of the most worthy Pontiffs, and the
writings of the Doctors of the Church. I vow to
conserve all that regards the rectitude of thy and
our orthodox Faith, which has been handed on
from thee.
“I vow to preserve entirely unchanged
the holy and universal councils, of Nicaea,
of Constantinople, the first of Ephesus, of
Chalcedon, and the second of Constantinople
which was celebrated in the time of the Emperor
Justinian of blessed memory, and with them
to give equal honor and veneration to the sixth
holy Council which recently united the Emperor
Constantine [IV] and my Apostolic predecessor
Agatho. I vow to most deeply and fully preserve
them, to preach what they preached, and to
condemn what they condemned, with my tongue
and with my heart.
“I vow to most diligently and vigorously
confirm, and preserve untainted all the decrees

of my predecessors, our Apostolic Pontiffs, which
have been duly decreed and promulgated, and
since these were issued by the same, to conserve
them in the stability of their strength; and that
which by their authority they condemned or
nullified, I vow to condemn with the judgments of
the same authority.
“I vow to preserve unblemished the discipline
and rite of the Church which I have received by
my holy predecessors, and to conserve the things
of the Church undiminished, and see that they be
maintained.
“I vow not to encroach upon, to alter, or to
permit any innovation to the Tradition I have
found preserved by my worthy predecessors, but
rather as their disciple and successor, to fervently
safeguard and venerate that Tradition, with my
whole strength and utmost effort; to correct
anything that may emerge that is in contradiction
to the canonical order; to guard the Holy Canons
and Decrees of our Popes as if they were the
Divine ordinances of Heaven, as I know that
I must render strict account to thee in Divine
justice of all this that I profess, to thee whose
place I take through the grace of God, and whom
I represent, aided by thy intercession.
“And if I shall have presumed to act contrary
to this, or to permit such a presumption, thou wilt
be unsparing to me in that fearful day of Divine
judgment.
“Endeavoring and taking care to diligently
observe this, while constituted in this mortal
life, I plea that thou send forth thy aid, that I
may appear irreprehensible before the face of
the judge of all men, Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who
shall come in power to judge our deeds, that He
may place me with those on His right hand, that
I may be numbered among thy faithful disciples
and successors.
“This my profession, containing all of the
above, noted by N. the Notary and Copyist by
my mandate, I have written by my own hand,
and with a clear mind and devoted conscience I
sincerely make to thee, swearing upon thy altar
and upon thy holy tomb.”
Fr. Christopher Danel was ordained in 2000. After
completing the philosophical and theological curriculum, he
took up specialization in the study of sacred liturgy, and is
stationed in Atlanta, Georgia.

35

The site of the Mamertine Prison has been used for Christian worship since medieval
times, and is currently occupied by two superimposed churches: S. Giuseppe dei Falegnami
(upper) and S. Pietro in Carcere (lower). The Cross on the altar in the lower chapel is upside
down, since according to tradition Saint Peter was crucified that way. A tradition has long
held that St. Peter was imprisoned at the Tullianum, and that the spring in the bottom of
the pit came into existence miraculously to enable him to conduct baptisms.

Dyed-in-theWool Roman!
An interview with Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais

The Angelus: Your Excellency, how do you
understand the term Romanitas?
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais: The word
conveys the idea of Christian Rome while not
excluding pagan Rome, which established the
unity of the future Christendom through the Latin
language and the organization of Imperial Rome;
after all, the first Christian princes were Roman
emperors. That’s why we don’t neglect pagan
Rome or even pagan Latin authors in our studies.
It is true that Providence willed that pagan Rome
become Christian, and this is the transformation
that we celebrate with the Feast of St. Peter on
the 29th of June. It’s what Pope Leo I expressed
in this beautiful passage in which he praises the
conversion of Rome: “From a master of error,
thou hast become a disciple of truth.”

The Angelus: You are suggesting first a pagan
Rome and then...?
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais: Then Rome
became the Rome of the Popes. Once the
emperors relocated to Byzantium, Rome became
entirely the Rome of the Popes, together with the
Papal States. It was Rome, through the popes,
that was to illumine Christendom and organize it
against its enemies.
The Angelus: What were the circumstances
that led Marcel Lefebvre to discover Rome?
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais: Young Marcel
was sent to Rome by his father, Mr. Lefebvre,
since his brother René was already attending
the French Seminary, then under the direction
of Father Le Floch, whom he held in high regard.
His father obliged his son to go there: “You are
37

Faith and Morals
going to Rome, no discussion. There’s no way you
are going to stay in the diocese of Lille, where
there are already liberal, modernist influences.
At Rome you’ll be under the direction of Father
Le Floch,” whom he saw as a director who would
hand on the doctrine of the popes.

Abp. Lefebvre with seminarians on the Rome Pilgrimage 1975

The Angelus: What did Romanitas mean for
the young seminarian?
38

The Angelus

January - February 2015

Bishop Tissier de Mallerais: For him it
meant continuity of papal doctrine. So, for
instance, during meals at the seminary, by order
of Father Le Floch, the papal encyclicals on the
important topics of Christian politics were read
aloud. And Father Le Floch himself was to give
lectures on the papal encyclicals of the last two
centuries, beginning with those of the popes
who condemned Freemasonry up to the French
Revolution. The two popes Pius VI and Pius VII
were its victims. Pius VI was to condemn the
principles of the French Revolution. Pius VII was
to cosign the Concordat with Napoleon so as
to revive the Church in France. There was also
the encyclical letter of Pius VII to the Bishop of
Troyes lamenting that Louis XVIII recognized
the Catholic religion, not as the religion of the
kingdom, but only as that of the majority of the
French. It was already the apostasy of a head of
a Catholic State. Then came the great encyclicals
of Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, and
Pius XI, all of which, in an admirable continuity,
condemned liberal errors in politics and taught
the doctrine of the social and political kingship of
Christ the King.
The Angelus: Would it be correct to say
that Archbishop Lefebvre would not have been
the traditionalist bishop we knew had he not
attended the French Seminary at Rome?
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais: Quite right,
even if the expression “traditionalist bishop” was
not his language. He told us seminarians: “My life
was completely changed by my stay at Rome. If
I had not gone to the seminary at Rome, I would
have become an ordinary diocesan priest without
the heritage of St. Pius X that I received at Rome
from Father Le Floch, Father Voegtli, Father Le
Rohellec, Father Frey and Father Haegy.” These
five teachers transmitted to him the spirit of St.
Pius X. When he first arrived at Rome, the odor
of sanctity, the virtues and the doctrine of St.
Pius X were still in the air, for he had died just
nine years before. Archbishop Lefebvre’s life was
completely changed thanks to the grace of going
to Rome.
The Angelus: Was this grace an illumination?
a conviction? the idyllic vision of the Church in its

essence?
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais: The Archbishop
told us that during his schooldays he had been
rather liberal. They thought that the separation
of Church and State was a good thing—not in his
family, though! Nonetheless, at school he had not
learned the principles of the Catholic City. It was
at Rome that he learned that the State ought to
publicly profess the Catholic religion and defend
it. So by going to the seminary, he underwent an
intellectual conversion that he often spoke to us
about. He would say: “I was very glad to be made
aware that I was mistaken when I used to think
that the separation of Church and State is a good
thing. I was a liberal!” When we heard that from
his own lips, we laughed and clapped. Though
it was a bit troubling, for they say that “once a
liberal, always a liberal”—maybe the Archbishop
had kept some vestiges of liberalism. But we did
not think so.
The Angelus: How did Archbishop Lefebvre
intend to instill an attachment to Rome, this
Roman spirit, in his seminarians?
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais: Once the
Society had been founded, first at Fribourg and
then Ecône, the first thing he wanted to do was
inaugurate a year of spirituality, which he had
not received at Rome but later experienced in
the novitiate of the Holy Ghost Fathers at Orly.
Among the planned curriculum was a special
course entitled “The Acts of the Magisterium.” It
entailed reflection and engagement in the battle
against modern errors. The goal was to enlist the
seminarians, so to speak, in the fray of the popes
against liberalism and modernism.
But some of his colleagues did not really grasp
the purpose of the course. For them, it was a
matter of discussion, intellectual jousting and
defeating of liberalism and modernism. But that
was not the Archbishop’s idea. For him it was a
matter of comprehending the spirit with which
the popes had condemned error. Now, this spirit
is the spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ. He always
connected the intellectual combat against error
with the supernatural combat at the level of
grace, and therefore with Christ the King. It was
for the reign of Christ the King that all of these
popes had condemned modernism. So, it did not

simply involve a course on modern errors, but a
commentary on the very text of the encyclicals of
the Roman popes on these magnificent subjects.
For, despite some weakness in their politics, their
doctrine was absolutely splendid and in perfect
continuity with the Church’s constant teaching.
The Angelus: Rome is the see of the
successor of St. Peter. When the supreme
teaching authority pronounces something
seriously as in these encyclicals...
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais: In principle, it
is the truth! Even if all these pontifical writings
are not infallible, nevertheless the teaching of
the pope was obeyed, received with piety and
devotion, with obedience. But let us be careful!
For Archbishop Lefebvre, Romanitas is not
merely: “The Pope has spoken in an encyclical,
and one must follow it and obey.” Romanitas
is a tradition. A rupture would be the end of
Romanitas. In that sense, the Second Vatican
Council was the death of Romanitas. Thus the
early death of two excellent Roman priests
and theologians: Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton,
who had fought for years and years against
the modernist theologians in the fifties in the
American Ecclesiastical Review and had
written his explosive manuscript diary of the
four years of the Council; and Fr. Alain Berto,
a classmate of the Archbishop at the French
Seminary in Rome, who had been the secretary
of the “Coetus” during the Council. Both of them
could not bear the death of Romanitas.
The Angelus: The Society has a house at
Albano, near Rome. How did this come about?
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais: The Archbishop
bought the property at Albano, which was
waiting for him and fell into his hands thanks
to an unexpected donation. The evening of his
first visit to Albano he was lamenting that he
didn’t have enough money for the purchase.
His chauffeur, Rémy Borgeat, said to him:
“Monseigneur, go ahead and buy it! Write the
check and St. Joseph will sign it.” And lo and
behold! a benefactor invited him to dinner, and
he had the million and a half he needed to buy the
property.

39

Faith and Morals
The Angelus: What did he intend the Albano
property to be used for?
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais: What did he
want to do with it? He wanted the SSPX to have
a presence in Rome, in the same way that the
Congregation of the Holy Ghost did. He wanted
to have a Roman year for all his priests. The
priests, after their ordination, would come to
Albano to soak up the Roman spirit. They would
have classes about Rome, the Roman spirit,
the archaeology and history of Rome. And they
would visit the monuments, the churches, the
relics, and the popes at Rome.
The Angelus: So, then, the priests of the SSPX
are not anti-pope or sedevacantist?
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais: Far from it!
It’s just the opposite. Archbishop Lefebvre had
a great devotion toward the popes, even for
Pius XI, who had condemned Action Française.
Even for Paul VI, the pope of the New Mass, who
suspended Archbishop Lefebvre, the Archbishop
had a great respect.
The Angelus: What in fact became of Albano?
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais: The priests’
year only existed a few months. In 1976, a small
group of priests, in which I did not have the good
fortune to participate, spent six months and then
were launched into the ministry. And finally the
priests’ year did not last. In its place, we had a
month at Rome. The theology seminarians would
spend a whole month at Albano and each day
would visit Rome.
The Angelus: There was also a seminary that
was established there for a while, wasn’t there?
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais: Oh, yes!
I forgot! Between 1978 and 1982, under the
direction of Father Bonneterre, there were two
years of philosophy at Rome between the year of
spirituality and theology at Ecône. For them, it
was very rewarding.
The Angelus: Was the Roman month
beneficial?
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais: I did it myself
just before the pontificate of Benedict XVI, and
I have very good memories of it. We lodged at
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Albano and we got up every morning, but not
too early. (The Germans, more energetic, got up
an hour before us.) We Frenchmen took things
a little easier, and went by train to the Termini
station, then went to visit the great Roman
basilicas. We visited many practically unknown
churches with Father Boivin for the French
and Father Klaus Wodsack for the Germans.
Obviously, we did not follow the same itineraries
since we did not have the same interests. For
Father Wodsack, the object was to show the
influence of the Holy Roman emperors, and for
Father Boivin, it was to show the role of the kings
of France.
The Angelus: Did the seminarians derive any
benefit?
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais: Yes, indeed.
Now our young priests are able to lead our
faithful in pilgrimage to Rome and hand on to
them something of the Roman spirit—Romanitas.

Apologia Pro
St. Pius V
by Fr. Roger-Thomas Calmel, O.P.

The Reverend Father Roger-Thomas Calmel,
O.P., wrote the lines that follow for the journal
Itinéraires in April 1972. More than forty years
later, his defense of St. Pius V remains relevant
because he analyzed the present crisis in light of
eternal principles. That is also why the remedies
enacted by the Council of Trent and implemented
by the holy Dominican pope have not gone out of
date, still less have they been transcended. They
are grounded in the vital principles of the Church
of all time—for the 16th century as for the 21st.
It would be hardly be fair to reproach St. Pius
V with a lack of broadness of outlook because of
his intransigence over the law of ecclesiastical
celibacy, the rite of Communion, or the early
retirement of eight French bishops as abettors of
heresy.

Athwart the New Religion’s
Real Emptiness
One can easily imagine a pope “sensitive to
the aspirations of his time” who, in the name
of a theoretical non-incompatibility between
the Christian faith and some of its practical
realizations, might become incapable of seeing
that, in fact, this non-incompatibility... is
ultimately bound to result in rather limited and
exacting realizations. In the contingent and
historical conduct of the government of the
Church, possible courses of action compatible
with the faith and effectively beneficent for faith
and morals are always rather restricted. This is
so because the Church is not out of this world; it
is not situated in the expanding sphere of the notabsolutely-contradictory, but it makes its way
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Spirituality
through the centuries and combats in the midst
of nations, surrounded by enemies. Moreover,
she has developed with the aid of the Holy Spirit
according to a determined Tradition that is part
and parcel of herself...

IV never stopped hoping that he might win back
some of the Protestants by making concessions
in the discipline of the ecclesiastical state and the
rite of Communion. So Pius V might credibly have
let himself be persuaded by a thousand reasons,

Standing in the Breach
At the historical juncture of the Western
Church in the 16th century, when in England,
Germany, and France there were so many
concubinary priests debasing the office of pastor,
and in the train of a tradition as ancient as that
of priestly celibacy; in a word, when the peril
was so grave and ecclesiastical tradition so firm,
the successor of Peter would have betrayed his
mission and played into the hands of heretics had
he allowed the introduction of the least break in
this holy history, justified in so many respects.
We could make analogous remarks about other
measures taken by St. Pius V: the codification of
the Ordo Missae, the maintenance of Latin in the
liturgy, Communion under one species. These
measures safeguarded the life of the Church.
Facing the Protestant kingdom of absence; facing
the heresy according to which Christ would have
withdrawn completely from the world leaving us
only the Bible; facing the icy, empty kingdom of
the new religion, holy Church remained standing
as the Kingdom of the Real Presence, the
impregnable kingdom where the Incarnate Word
will continue His presence till the end of time in
the Eucharistic species.

A Good Leader of the
Church of Jesus Christ
It is easy for us to see and to say this four
centuries later. But just after the Council of
Trent, when Protestantism was still powerful
and expansive, it is not unthinkable that the
successor of Pius IV might have considered
things a little less piously from the Lord’s
outlook—“Levavi oculos meos ad montes unde
veniet auxilium mihi—I have lifted up my eyes
to the mountains, from whence help shall come to
me” (Ps. 120). Indeed, until his dying breath, Pius
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each more cogent than the next, and they would
have all led to the invariable conclusion of bad
pontiffs: “We shall not lose the holy City even if
we dismantle the ramparts; we shall become,
on the contrary, much more accessible, and the
world will be grateful. Let us in any case begin by
reducing the height of the ramparts by half, and
let us take down the towers. After all, with the
progress of humanity, the so-called enemies of

religion are not so wicked as has been said; the
devil is not so furious. There is no intrinsically
perverse apparatus of domination. And then,
to tell the truth, we cannot quite admit that the
Lord should require of us continual combat and
a witness that might go so far as the shedding of
blood. Why do you insist that the Lord expects us
to always be on the alert night and day?”
Why indeed? because He desires to conform us
to Himself out of love, and because love does not
sleep.
The goodness of the leader, like the goodness
of every man, surely consists in mercy,
comprehension, liberality, self-sacrificing
devotion. The leader, however, to deserve to be
called good, must combine with the common
virtues the accomplished exercise of virtues
particular to one invested with authority: sound
judgment, strong character, imperviousness to
human respect, and indifference to unpopularity.
If Pope Pius V was good to the point of being a
saint, and a canonized saint; if he was a good
leader of the Church of Jesus Christ; if he was
on earth and in the 16th century a holy Vicar of
the eternal Pontiff, it was because in his soul
realism and energy were but one with mercy and
liberality. He was such because his soul, like that
of a true son of St. Dominic, dwelt in the truth of
God and acted in His light.

Say Not the Struggle
Nought Availeth
Our age is not better than his was. It
even seems to be worse, for the methods of
Communists are more effective for suffocating
the life of the soul and extinguishing temporal
freedom than Turkish domination, and
modernism is deadlier than Protestantism; in
effect, it does not proceed by open negation but
by interior sterilization. Dogmas and sacraments
are not denied outright, but, by a diabolical
process of dismantling, modernism leads
gradually to their denaturing and the voiding of
their proper mystery.
The Church after Pius XII has known a distress
deeper and more universal than the Church of the
age of St. Pius V. But what can we do? Obviously,

hold fast to Tradition, be it the Mass—the Mass
of St. Pius V, Latin in the liturgy, the Catechism,
the tried and true customs of Catholic prayer,
especially the Rosary, and temporal Christian
institutions, at least whatever remains of them.
Even so doing, it is not out of the question that we
may experience the temptation, What’s the use?
What is out of the question is that we should take
this temptation seriously, or let it gain a foothold
in our hearts, or impinge on our resolutions by a
fraction of an inch. It is impossible to say What’s
the use? when one knows that it is always good to
prove to God our love, the first proof of love being
to persevere in the Faith and to keep Catholic
Tradition.
All the reasons we have for losing heart—the
prolonged fight, the extensive betrayal, increased
isolation—should only be considered in the
supreme light of faith. The greatest misfortune
that could befall us is not to be bruised in the
depth of our soul by the woes of the present
times and the scandals from on high; it would be
to lack faith and consequently to fail to see that
the Lord makes use of the present distress to
urge us to turn our gaze towards Him, to invite
us to show Him more than ever our trust and
love. So, the first thing to do—and it is here that
the intercession and example of the great Pope,
a true son of St. Dominic, are such a boon—the
first thing to do is to look at the Lord, and then to
keep this supernatural contemplation inseparable
from consideration of the attacks to be repulsed
and the struggle to be engaged till the end.

A Nouvelles de Chrétienté article (July-August 2012),
excerpted from Fr. Calmel’s “Saint Pie V, un pape fils de saint
Dominique,” Itinéraires, April 1972, and reprinted in Nous
sommes fils des Saints (NEL, 2011), pp. 113-119. Translated
and edited by Angelus Press.

43

Spirituality

The Bones
of St. Peter
Sì Sì No No, XXXIX, 5

The Church’s Tradition relates that Saint Peter
came to Rome, where he died a martyr during the
persecution of Nero, being crucified upside down,
and was buried in the Vatican near the site of his
glorious martyrdom. On his tomb, which soon
became an object of veneration, the first Vatican
Basilica was built at the behest of Constantine in
the fourth century.
This tradition has been confirmed by the
investigations of science. Professor Margherita
Guarducci has studied the issue deeply, working
since 1952 in the substructure of the Vatican
Basilica, managing to decipher the ancient
graffiti under the Altar of the Confession in 1958
and finally to identify the relics of St. Peter in
1964 (cf. M . Guarducci, The Tomb of Peter: An
Extraordinary Story [Milan: Rusconi, 1989];
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The Relics of Peter in the Vatican [Rome:
Government Printing Office and National Mint,
1995]; The Keys on the Rock (Casale Monferrato:
Piemme, 1995]; The Primacy of the Roman
Church [Milan: Rusconi, 1991]). Now, “if Rome
was the center of the universal Church, the
focal point of this center was the tomb of Peter”
(Guarducci, The Tomb of Peter, p. 10).
In particular, two sources, extremely
authoritative and very close to the facts narrated,
prove that St. Peter was martyred in the Vatican.
They are St. Clement of Rome and Tacitus.
At the end of the first century, Pope St.
Clement, speaking of the persecution of Nero
(A.D. 64), certifies that the Christians on that
occasion gathered around the Apostles Peter and
Paul, to attain the strength needed to pass the
test (Epistle to the Corinthians, I, 5-6).

The great Roman historian Tacitus, towards
the end of the second century, attests that Nero,
after the fire of Rome (A.D. 64), having been
accused by the populace of provoking it, wanted
to blame it on the Christians and unleashed a
fierce persecution against them. This came to
its conclusion, according to Tacitus (Annals,
XV, 44), in the circus of Nero’s own gardens in
the Vatican, the only place of entertainment
remaining in Rome after the fire of 64. Here,
many Christians perished.

The Main Sources of Literature
on the Petrine Tomb
In Rome, during the pontificate of Pope
Zefirinus (199-217), a learned Roman ecclesiastic
named Gaius took issue with Proclus, the leader
of the Roman Montanists. Since Proclus, to
devalue the authority of the Roman Church,
boasted of the presence in Asia Minor of various
famous tombs of the apostolic age (the tomb
of the Apostle Philip and his four daughters),
Gaius opposed to those graves the “trophies” or
glorious tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul,
existing respectively in the Vatican and on the
Ostian Way. The words of Gaius are recorded
by Eusebius of Caesarea, the famous church
historian, who wrote in the first half of the fourth
century (Historia Ecclesiastica, II, 25, 7).
St. Jerome in De viris illustribus, composed
in 392, says that Peter was buried in the Vatican
and was venerated there by the faithful of the
whole world. Moreover, in the Liber Pontificalis
of the sixth century we read that Peter “was
buried on the Via Aurelia...at the place where he
was crucified...in the Vatican.”

The Excavations
under the Basilica
On June 28, 1939, Pope Pius XII gave the order
to lower the floor of the Vatican Grottoes to allow
archeologists to study the issue of the tomb of
Peter. It was the beginning of an amazing feat.
The excavations lasted about ten years (19401949) and ended on the eve of the Holy Year of

1950. The official report of them came out in
November 1951.
The excavations led to the discovery, below
the Vatican Basilica, of a vast necropolis of
pagan times with successive Christian elements.
The extreme western area of the necropolis is
located under the dome of Michelangelo, that
is, under the Altar of the Confession. Under this
altar, the excavations revealed the existence of
a series of superimposed monuments. Starting
from the present-day altar (of Clement VIII,
1594) and proceeding downward, there are: the
altar of Callistus II (1123); the altar of Gregory
the Great (590-604), which remained included in
the subsequent altar of Callistus; the monument
erected by Constantine predating the Basilica
(about 321-326) and, inside the Constantinian
monument, a funerary aedicule (end of second to
beginning of third century): the so-called “Trophy
of Gaius” (Guarducci, The Relics of Peter, pp.
15 ff.).
The west end of the cemetery includes a fairly
large area, called by archaeologists “Field P.” It is
bordered by a wall, called the “Red Wall” because
of the color of the plaster that covered it. At the
center of the “Red Wall” is a semicircular niche
and, a bit higher up, a small wall, called “Wall
g,” which is covered on its north side by a forest
of graffiti. The “Red Wall” with the semicircular
niche is the backdrop to the “Trophy of Gaius,”
the votive altar that Christians erected in the
second century over the earthen tomb in which
the body of St. Peter was buried in 64. The
Trophy takes its name from the Roman priest
Gaius of the third century (discussed above), who
asserted that the tomb of Peter is in the Vatican
in Rome.
Under the Trophy of Gaius, archaeologists
appointed by Pope Pius XII found the place of the
primitive burial (earthen tomb), but they found
it empty. Why? This is explained by considering
that at the beginning of the fourth century,
Constantine built on the site of the ancient
Trophy of Gaius a large basilica with five naves,
whose altar was located exactly above the grave
of the Apostle. The same Emperor had already
had the bones of St. Peter gathered from the
damp earthen tomb and, wrapped in a precious
fabric of purple and gold, had them placed in
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Spirituality
a dry and fitting marble niche set in a wall (Wall
g) that stood alongside the primitive burial place.
The north part of Wall g was covered by a “wild
forest” of graffiti, among which stood out also the
names of Christ, Mary and Peter, but the authors
of the excavations were not able to decipher the
tangle of writing.

The Announcement of Pius XII
At the conclusion of the work, in any case,
the first scholars had come to establish that the
various monuments built upon the altar of the
Confession on the initiative of some of the popes,
all rest, overlapping, on the ancient monument
of Constantine. In short, the excavations
ordered by Pius XII archaeologically confirmed
what Tradition already taught: that the tomb
of St. Peter is still under the Papal Altar. In
his Christmas message of 1950, Pope Pius XII,
therefore, announced to the world: “Was the tomb
of St. Peter really found? To this question the
final conclusion of the work and studies responds
with a clear yes. The tomb of the Prince of the
Apostles has been uncovered. A second issue,
subordinate to the first, concerns the relics of the
saint. Were they discovered? At the edge of the
tomb the remains of human bones were found,
however, it is not possible to prove with certainty
that they belonged to the mortal remains of the
Apostle.”
Therefore the tomb of Peter was found with
certainty, but not with equal certainty the bones
of the saint. The merit of the discovery and
identification of them can be attributed mainly
to Margherita Guarducci, who, beginning to be
interested in the Vatican excavations, brought
with her the method that she had long since
adopted and refined, namely that of rigorous
scientific research, having been for many years
an archaeologist by profession and a university
professor.

An Unwitting Recovery
and a Lost Fragment
The relics of the Prince of the Apostles were
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not found even in the marble niche of Wall g
where Constantine had had them placed in
the fourth century (on the right of the Trophy
of Gaius, built in the second century over the
primitive grave, or earthen tomb, where St. Peter
was buried in A.D. 64). Why?
In 1941, while Monsignor Kaas, who was
personally monitoring the progress of the
work, made the usual inspection tour of the
excavations in the evening (after the Basilica
closed) accompanied by “Sampietrino” Giovanni
Segoni, he noticed that in Wall g, in the midst of
various debris, some human bones were visible.
Their presence had escaped the notice of the four
scholars who worked at the excavation during
the day. But they did not escape the vigilant and
careful eye of the German Monsignor. With a
sense of respect for the remains of the deceased,
Monsignor Kaas decided to separate the bones
from the debris, and to have Segoni put them in a
wooden box that the same Segoni and Monsignor
Kaas then deposited in a storeroom of the Vatican
grottoes. “With this [writes Guarducci] Monsignor
Kaas saved, without knowing, the relics of Peter”
(Guarducci, The Tomb of Peter, p. 84).
In 1952 Professor Guarducci asked to visit
the excavations. Her desire was to see with
her own eyes an inscription that appeared in a
drawing published by the Jesuit Father Antonio
Ferrua on January 5, 1952 in the magazine La
Civiltà Cattolica and on January 16 in the Rome
newspaper Il Messaggero. It was a reconstructive
drawing of the aedicule erected in honor of
St. Peter in the second century. To the right a
Greek inscription was drawn on the wall: PETR
/ ENI. Guarducci thought that ENI could be a
contracted form of ENESTI (“is inside”), whence
resulted the sentence “Peter is here, here he lies.”
It was necessary, however, to determine
whether the sentence continued towards the
right, in which case the meaning could be
different. However, when the professor, led by
Eng. Vacchini, was able to visit the area of the
excavations, she was deeply disappointed: where
the very interesting inscription was supposed
to be, there was a rather large gap in the plaster.
The missing fragment was found by Father
Ferrua, who, for unknown reasons had taken it to
his cell and, once it was known, had to return it

to the Vatican in 1955 by order of Pope Pius XII.
Guarducci could then study it and saw that the
top line of the inscription inclined downwards,
preventing the continuation of the second
line. Thus the reading ENI and the subsequent
interpretation of the professor were confirmed.
The epigraph thus acquired a very great value
(Guarducci, The Relics of Peter, pp. 46-50).

The Discovery and
Scientific Studies on the
Bones of St. Peter
Meanwhile, in 1953, Guarducci had begun to
study the numerous graffiti inscribed on Wall g,
of which previous scholars were able to decipher
only a small part. Guarducci herself relates
the events thus: “While I puzzled to find a way

into that savage forest [of graffiti], it occurred
to me that maybe it would be helpful to know
if something else had been found in the niche
below, besides the small remnants described by
the excavators in the official report. By chance,
Giovanni Segoni was nearby, who had recently
been promoted to the lead position of the
‘Sampietrini.’ I directed my question to him…,
and he answered without hesitation: ‘Yes, there
must be something else, because I remember
gathering it with my own hands. Let’s go see if
we can find it.’ He then led me to the storeroom
of bone fragments....I went in behind Segoni for
the first time into that room. There, among crates
and baskets filled with bone fragments and other
various materials, lying on the ground was the
box that the same Segoni and Monsignor Kaas
had deposited more than ten years before....A
note, tucked between the box and the lid, very
moist but still perfectly readable, declared
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Spirituality
that the material came from Wall g. Segoni told
me that he had written it himself....I thought
it appropriate and necessary to immediately
take the box to the office of Eng. Vacchini and
there...the box was opened and we extracted
the contents. We found a certain amount of
bones, of a distinctly clear color, mixed with
soil..., fragments of red plaster, and tiny reddish
fragments of cloth woven with gold thread....I
have to say... [continues Guarducci] the idea had
obviously already flashed in my mind that the
niche of Wall g was originally intended to house
the relics of Peter....But then, before the recovered
remains, I felt strongly skeptical...” (The Relics of
Peter, p. 85-87).
The famous professor Venerando Correnti was
chosen to be the anthropologist who studied the
bones contained in the box. Here is the result
of his studies: the bones belonged to a single
individual, male and of a robust constitution,
whose age ranged between sixty and seventy
years; they constituted about half of the skeleton,
representing all parts of the body except the feet;
some of the bones showed traces of reddish color
that made one think of a fabric that had enclosed
them. All of these elements corresponded
perfectly to St. Peter.
In the meantime, since Pius XII had
unfortunately passed away in 1958, John XXIII
took up the question of the tomb and relics of
Peter, but Guarducci notes that “he [John XXIII],
however, lacked that innate impulse of love
for Rome and the vision of that vast cultural
horizon that had inflamed Pius XII with an
extraordinary interest in the subterranean area
of the Vatican Basilica” (The Relics of Peter, p.
73). Nevertheless, the research continued. All
the scientific data gathered since then, together
with the epigraph “Peter is here” from the Red
Wall, made it possible for Guarducci to be able to
announce to Paul VI on November 25, 1963, that,
with great probability, the relics of St. Peter were
finally found.
Meanwhile, the scientific investigations
were extended to the commercial and chemical
disciplines (conducted by Professor Maria Luisa
Stein and Professor Paolo Malatesta from “La
Sapienza” University of Rome) and yielded the
following results concerning the fabric: it was a
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very fine cloth dyed with authentic and valuable
Tyrian purple; the gold was authentic and
very fine: it was the same type of purple fabric
interwoven with gold in which the bodies of the
Emperors were wrapped!
All of this confirmed that the body buried in
the earthen tomb and then wrapped in purple
and gold inside the Constantinian niche was that
of the Prince of the Apostles, St. Peter! Even the
earth which encrusted the bones was subjected
to a petrographic examination by Professors
Carlo Lauro and Giancarlo Negretti: it was sandy
marl very similar to the soil in Field P which
confirmed the origin of the bones as coming from
the underground niche or earthen grave that lay
under the Trophy of Gaius of the second century.

The Announcement of Paul VI
At the conclusion of these and other findings
made in the following years by other scientists,
Paul VI announced to the faithful on June 26,
1968, that the bones of St. Peter had been found
and identified.
However, Guarducci found in the speech
of Paul VI some reluctance, inaccuracies, and
contradictions, due to the old anti-Roman and
anti-Petrine prejudice and the new ecumenical
spirit of the “subsistit in.” In fact, the text reads:
“The research, verifications, discussions, and
controversies will not have ended...; we have
reason to believe that only a few remnants...of the
mortal remains of the Prince of the Apostles have
been found.” Guarducci comments: “The phrase...
is not very true. In June 1968, the research and
verification was now practically exhausted.
Everything had been made clear....It also was not
very exact to define the relics of the Apostle as
a ‘few remnants’...; they were, on the contrary,
very abundant: about half of the skeleton in
all. This...was the announcement of Paul VI: an
announcement that, even if not perfect, was at
least at that time sufficient, indeed providential”
(The Relics of Peter, p. 118).
On June 27, 1968, the relics of St. Peter were
solemnly returned with a notarial deed to the
niche of Wall g, where Constantine had had them
laid in the fourth century and where twenty-seven

years before, Monsignor Kaas had unwittingly
removed them, saving them from very probable
dispersion.

authentic relics of Peter. The eyes of all those
who think of and honestly work for the future of
the Christian world must therefore turn to Rome”
(M. Guarducci, The Keys on the Rock, [Casale
Monferrato: Piemme, 1995], p. 58-59).

The Danger of Ecumenism
The fact that the tomb of Peter, the Apostle
on whom Jesus said He would build His Church,
is in Rome is of paramount importance for the
recognition of the Primacy. The Church of Christ
is that which is founded on Peter; the tomb and
relics of Peter are in Rome, in the Vatican; thus
the true Church of Christ is that which is Roman.
Guarducci observes: “It would be...dangerous
to forget...that between the unique doctrine
of Christianity and those of the other two
monotheistic religions [Jewish and Muslim]
there also exist deep contrasts, which cannot
be glossed over with indifference. The Holy
Trinity is a fundamental dogma of the Christian
religion, for example. Nothing similar is found
in the other two monotheistic religions. One
must consider, moreover, that for Christianity
the Incarnation of the Son of God...is absolutely
essential, and that Incarnation is denied by the
Jews....As for Islam, remember that the Muslims
shun...the idea that God has a ‘Son’ and that
this ‘Son’ could have undergone the infamous
torture of crucifixion. The view of Christianity
towards the future remains that indicated by
Christ Himself. Speaking of Himself in the fourth
Gospel as the Good Shepherd (John X, 16)..., the
Redeemer said that He has other sheep that are
not yet of this fold, but that they will become
so. He thinks naturally to the future disciples...
who will come...in the course of centuries, to
increase the flock gathered by him in Palestine.
At the end there will be, He says, ‘one flock and
one Shepherd’ (John 10:16). And how will this
blessed ingathering take place? ...It will be thanks
to the work of the Apostles, and the missionaries
who will come after them....And where will be
the seat...of the one blessed sheepfold that will
house the flock of Christ until the end of time?
The answer is easy, and today even easier than
in the past: it will be in Rome. It has been proven
...that in Rome...the Catholic Church...is, by a
miraculous privilege, physically founded on the

Conclusion
With the discovery of the tomb and bones of
St. Peter, the historical tradition of the coming
of St. Peter to Rome, his sojourn in the Eternal
City as its bishop, and his martyrdom and burial,
receives a scientific and irrefutable confirmation
consoling to Catholicity. Moreover, this develop­
ment confirms what the Magisterium of the
Church has always maintained: the primacy over
the other Apostles that Christ conferred upon
Peter is transmitted to the Bishops of Rome in
consequence of their succession on the Chair of
Peter. And it is for this reason that the opponents
of the Roman Church have several times denied
the presence of the tomb of Peter in Rome.
Professor Guarducci concludes thus: “On
these [the relics of Peter] the Church of Rome is
physically founded....Christ, declaring to Peter
that He would build His Church upon him...,
alludes prophetically to the very Church of Rome
and its continuity over the course of the centuries
until the last day....Under the altar of the [Vatican]
Basilica, we still find, miraculously surviving,
the remains of Peter who, by the will of Christ,
was, is, and always will be the foundation of His
Church” (M. Guarducci, The Relics of Peter, p.
133).

49

The open space which lies before
the basilica was redesigned by Gian
Lorenzo Bernini from 1656 to 1667,
under the direction of Pope Alexander
VII, as an appropriate forecourt,
designed “so that the greatest number
of people could see the Pope give his
blessing, either from the middle of the
façade of the church or from a window
in the Vatican Palace.” At the centre
of the square is an Egyptian obelisk,
erected at the current site in 1586.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini designed the
square, including the massive Tuscan
colonnades, four columns deep, which
embrace visitors in “the maternal arms
of Mother Church.”

Book Review

The Golden Door

Mary in Our Life

By Katherine Burton

By Fr. William Most

304 pp. – Softcover –
STK# 8654 – $16.95

352 pp. – Softcover –
STK# 8653 – $16.95

The Golden Door

Mary in Our Life

“The Navajo in his Hogan, the Negro in his cabin,
the white man, poverty-stricken or wealthy, all were
entitled to receive an education… O Lord, turn the
hearts of men in love to their brethren.”
Saints’ lives naturally define our priorities in life
and urge us onward. Often a fundamental intuition
is the pivotal point of their spiritual ascent. For
Katherine Drexel, it was the Gospel words to “give
up all that you have, take up your cross and follow
Me.” Her epic is worth telling, starting at age 30,
when she devoted her life and her own huge fortune
to the aid and comfort of the most wretched and
abandoned souls in the U.S.
This biography not only relates an American
history; it tells not only the intricacies of the pioneer
years of Christianity in the South and West. In fact,
a world of education and physical mercy suddenly
opens before our eyes. And, there is always the
question of racial civil rights which, to this day, has
never found a better solution than that given by
such Catholic heroes as Katharine Drexel.
The readers of these pages will be astounded
to discover the makings of a saint in the genuine
humility of an upper-class woman turned novice
mopping the floor to her heart’s content. Described
here are 65 years of religious life of the woman who
used the largest inheritance ever for her mission
work in the North East, the deep South, and the
West, her close connections with the successors
of Fr. de Smedt and mission priests as well as the
greatest Church leaders of the time.

This latest book out of Angelus Press will certainly draw the curiosity and interest of our Marian
readers. This prolific spiritual writer of the mid
20th century here presents a colorful palette of the
Blessed Mother.
He starts with the assumption that no spiritual
devotion to Mary could exist without sound doctrinal foundation. And so he endeavors, with perfect
success, harmoniously to join dogma and devotion,
the faith and the filial sentiments we owe to our
heavenly Mother.
One will certainly find one’s spiritual food in this
unassuming book. Besides the obvious privileges
which adorn Mary at the Incarnation and the foot
of the Cross, we find little gems like the steps of
perfection and prayer, and the total consecration
according to St. Louis de Montfort.
To top it all, abundant texts are offered in the numerous appendices about the popular devotions of
the Rosary and the scapular, the potential dogma of
the Coredemption and the New Eve.
This book is to be used as a bedside read, as a
spiritual guide for perfection in imitation of Mary,
or as a study on the faith as it includes also a study
guide. Its easy-read style will make this Reader’s
digest on Mariology a favorite of Christian homes.

Fr. Dominique Bourmaud

Bloodthirsty
Indifferentism
Religious Persecution in the Roman Empire

by Dr. John Dredger

Throughout the history of the Roman empire,
the Roman people came into contact with many
different religious ideas. In the majority of
these encounters the Romans assimilated the
practices of the various sects while maintaining
their own form of religion. Yet in the case of
Catholicism, the Romans did not always show
such indifferentism. On the contrary, ten
times between A.D. 64 and A.D. 311 did Roman
emperors persecute the early Catholics: Nero (6468), Domitian (95-96), Trajan (112-117), Marcus
Aurelius (161-180), Septimius Severus (202-211),
Maximinus (235-238), Decius (249-251), Valerian
(257-259), Aurelian (270-275), and Diocletian and
Galerius (303-311).
Such a departure from the usually tolerant
policy of the Roman government towards foreign
forms of worship demands explanation. Why

would a religiously indifferent people persecute
the adherents of one religion and not those of any
other? The answer lies in the purpose of religion
for Roman rulers and citizens as well as the
beliefs and practices of the early Catholics.
For most educated Romans during the late
Roman republic and early empire, religion held
a practical and political purpose. While the
majority of the common people still believed in
the various gods and goddesses of the Roman
pantheon, the intellectual elites dismissed such
beliefs as simplistic and superstitious. The
Roman writer Marcus Terentius Varro stated
the idea prominent among the Roman upper
classes that religion held a secondary place to the
foundation of society and thus served the already
existing society and its political conditions.
Instead of worshipping apotheosized
53

Christian Culture
mortals in the form of the Roman pantheon, the
Roman elite preferred the Greek philosophies of
Epicure­a nism and Stoicism. Epicureanism placed
the source of joy in sense pleasure while Stoicism
attributed human happiness to a reasonable life
lived according to nature. These philosophies
provided a more intellectually satisfying
explanation for life and its vicissitudes than
the unsophisticated veneration of superhuman
divinities. The Greek philosophies also permitted
the Roman upper classes to take a more individ­
ual approach towards life and intellectual
pursuits in general. This focus on the individual’s
own ideas still allowed the Roman view of

Diocletian

Domitian

the Roman government, held great political
importance with the power to affect war and
foreign policy. As the Roman historian Titus
Livius wrote around the time of the Incarnation,
“Who is there who is ignorant of the fact that
this city has been founded with auspices, that
everything in war and peace, at home and in
the army, is done with auspices?” Therefore,
Romans attributed the greatest significance of
the priesthoods to the political role that they
played within the state. As elected offices,
the priesthoods and the religion which they
represented took on a position subordinate to the
state in Roman society.
To a people imbued with the ideas of religious
54

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January - February 2015

indifferentism towards religion, which Pontius
Pilatus, the procurator of Judea, embodied in his
infamous question to Our Lord, “What is truth?”
Therefore, with no regard for religion as an
explanation of life or a means of happiness, what
function did religion perform for the Roman
intellectual elite? The Roman upper class viewed
religion as a part of the political and social life
of Rome. The most important priestly positions,
the pontifices, including the Pontifex Maximus,
though originally elected only by other priests,
had become open to public election during the
Republic. The augures, responsible for consulting
the will of the gods concerning decisions of

Galerius

Marcus Aurelius

indifferentism and state-controlled religion, most
other forms of worship did not pose a threat
as long as these cults allowed for assimilation
within the pre-existing Roman religion or at least
peaceful co-existence. Thus, in most cases the
Romans showed tolerance for other religions
while not forcing conquered peoples to adopt
Roman religious practices. When the Romans
came into contact with new cults, they adopted
many, such as the cults of Mithras and Isis,
which became popular among the Roman people.
The Romans did not replace their own religion
with these cults but rather added new religious
practices to their private worship. As long as the
inhabitants of the Roman empire occasionally

made a public act of adoration to the Roman
gods or to the genius of the head of state, Roman
officials considered the people loyal to the
government. This requirement came from the fact
that reverence for the Roman pantheon and the
person of the ruler constituted a political act of
patriotism because the state controlled religion
in Rome.
For Catholics, however, the public act of
adoration to false gods or to a human consisted
of denial of the true faith. The early Christians
could not worship false gods in an act of
ecumenical indifferentism or tolerance. As G.
K. Chesterton wrote in The Everlasting Man,

Maximinus

Nero

revolutionary intent. This political explanation
comprises the main reason for Roman
persecution of the early Church.
Other reasons, however, existed as well. One
of the most prominent causes of Roman hatred
for Christianity came from the financial danger
that Catholicism presented to certain classes
and occupations within the Roman empire. The
various kinds of Roman priests, of course, earned
their living from their official positions within
the government. Other people, including artists,
jewelers, artisans, and merchants, feared the loss
of large sums of money because conversions to
Christianity limited their business in providing
religious objects and animals for pagan

“Nobody understands the nature of the Church,
or the ringing note of the creed descending from
antiquity, who does not realize that the whole
world once very nearly died of broadmindedness
and the brotherhood of all religions.” Catholics
recognized the necessity of spreading the belief
in one true God rather than continuing the
spiritual death of religious indifferentism that
the pagan world had suffered for hundreds of
years. Therefore, the early Christians refused to
perform these acts of pagan sacrifice for religious
reasons, whereas the Romans interpreted the
Catholic refusal to burn incense before the altars
of the gods as a political deed and a statement of

Traianus

Septimus

sacrifices. The head of each Roman household
sacrificed daily to the penates or lares, the
ancestral gods of each family. Similarly, the state
offered larger sacrifices to the official Roman
deities on a daily basis. Pliny the Younger, as
governor of the province of Bithynia and Pontus,
wrote to the Emperor Trajan that hardly anyone
bought sacrificial animals since Christianity had
so many adherents in that part of the empire.
Thus, Romans who depended on pagan religious
practices for their livelihood, reacted strongly
against Catholicism because of monetary
concerns.
In addition to the political and financial
causes, individual Roman emperors
55

Christian Culture
persecuted the early Christians for personal
reasons. In A.D. 64, Nero needed to divert
suspicion from himself for the burning of Rome
and found that the Catholics served him well
as both scapegoats and victims for his neurotic
pleasure. Maximinus in the third century desired
to plunder the treasuries of the Christians.
Sometimes emperors, such as Marcus Aurelius,
as well as their pagan subjects, blamed famine,
war, pestilence, and natural calamities on the
Catholics. As the Christian author Tertullian
wrote, “If the Tiber rises above its banks, if the
Nile does not overflow, if the skies are not clear, if
the earth quakes, if famine or pestilence come, up
goes the cry, ‘The Christians to the lions.’”
Marcus Aurelius and other emperors also
persecuted Catholics because of the Christian
‘atheism,’ or rejection of the false Roman gods,
and belief in only one God. The Catholic rejection
of other religions offended the Roman sense of
indifferentism and tolerance of other cults. Even
in the persecutions related to religious motives,
however, the ‘atheism’ of the early Catholics
contained a political threat for the pagan Romans
as worship of the gods comprised an integral part
of publicly displaying loyalty and obedience to
the Roman state and rulers.
Later during the imperial stage of Roman
history, worship of emperors while still alive
became more common. Earlier rulers, such as
Augustus and Vespasian, had resisted efforts to
divinize the princeps, or head of state, although
apotheosis started in the case of Julius Caesar
during the first century B.C. Even during the
reign of Augustus, the tendency to worship the
emperor had existed in the eastern provinces.
In addition, Augustus as well as his successors
combined the role of princeps and pontifex
maximus, rendering the connection between
ruler and religion even greater. Thus, just as
religion played an inferior role in Roman society,
religion also served as a subordinate cause for
the persecution of Catholics.
This situation continued throughout the
history of Rome. In the third century the desire to
form a perfectly unified state drove the emperor
Decius to attempt to extirpate Christianity from
the Roman empire. Similarly, Diocletian and
Galerius instituted the last great persecution
56

The Angelus

January - February 2015

in an effort to create political unity led by
divine rulers. The common theme among the
persecutions remained the Roman view that
Catholicism presented a threat to the political
and social stability of the empire because of the
Christian belief in one true God instead of the
plethora of pagan divinities.
Therefore, during the years from A.D. 64 to
A.D. 311, Roman emperors persecuted the early
Christians in ten major as well as several minor
persecutions. The pagan Roman concept of
religion could not include the belief in one true
God who required the worship of Him alone
rather than a pantheon of gods. Acceptance of
Catholicism would have meant an act of treason
against the state and the ruler, as veneration of
the Roman deities and even the emperor himself
comprised an important part of Roman public
displays of loyalty and patriotism. The inability
of many Romans to realize that Christianity did
not pose a threat to the state, however, led a
usually tolerant people to persecute Catholics
not so much for religious reasons but for political
as well as financial fears. Thus, the religiously
indifferent Romans spilled much Christian blood,
which in turn brought about the conversions of
those who sincerely sought the truth.
For further reading, Fr. A. Guggenberger’s A
General History of the Christian Era provides
a good overview of the early Church from a
Catholic viewpoint. Both the letter of Pliny the
Younger to Trajan and Trajan’s response display
the attitude of the Roman government towards
Catholics in the second century. The writings
of early Christian authors, such as Origen and
Tertullian, also show how pagans saw Catholics
while describing the persecutions.

Dr. John A. Dredger currently holds the position of viceprincipal at Assumption Academy in Walton, Kentucky, with
over 20 years of experience in education from primary school
to university. He obtained a B.A. in Education from St. Mary’s
College, an M.A. in Classical Languages from the University of
Kansas, and a Ph.D. in History from Kansas State University.

352 pp. – Softcover – 24 pp. of illustrations – STK# 6768✱ – $21.95

Saint Pius X
Restorer of the Church
Yves Chiron
Read the definitive story of the poor boy who eventually ascended to the highest
throne in this world, Pope St. Pius X. This biography details the struggles of St.
Pius X against modernism, his reformation of the Church from Canon Law to Gregorian Chant, and overall, his great program to restore all things in Christ. A must
read for anyone interested in the modern history of the Catholic Church.

327 pp. – Softcover – Illustrations and photos – STK# 8126✱ – $21.95

Pope Pius IX
The Man and the Myth
Yves Chiron
Blessed Pius IX was one of the most interesting and complex individuals ever to
become Supreme Pontiff. His pontificate included the proclamation of the dogmas
of the Immaculate Conception and papal infallibility, the convocation of the First
Vatican Council, the publication of the Syllabus of Errors, the beginnings of Catholic Action, and the development of the foreign missions.

SET: Saint Pius X, Blessed Pius IX
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www.angeluspress.org — 1-800-966-7337
Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music.

Christian Culture

Who Wants
to Set the
Table?
SSPX Sisters

In a family, the children are not like guests
at a hotel where everything is served them. It is
essential that they share in the family chores, and
the first one that comes to mind because it is a
simple, daily activity is setting the table. This is
even one of the first tasks which the children can
fulfill, and they will be proud of being judged able
to set the table.
Perhaps you are afraid that the little ones
might break the dishes. The risk is not so great.
See how eager they are to prove to you that they
are worthy of the trust given them. They know
how to pay attention and be careful when they
need to. Is it not better to take this minimal risk
of a broken glass than to turn our children into
selfish creatures disinclined to render service.
If needs be, you can put out plastic dishes at the
beginning of their apprenticeship.
58

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January - February 2015

How often should one ask for their help?
Setting the table is a daily chore and so you ought
to request this help daily in order to accustom
the children to keep up the effort and not to
content themselves with an occasional attempt at
helpfulness. You may organize yourself according
to the composition of the family: you might ask
for a volunteer every time, but then the risk is
that it will be the same child with a generous
temperament; and what should you do if there is
no volunteer? Setting the table could also be the
privilege of the youngest child whereas the older
ones are tapped for harder chores. Or each child
may take a turn at table duty either for lunch or
dinner. This is a task which can be asked of both
boys as well as girls when they are younger. But
as they grow older it would be better to ask of the
boys other, more masculine services, like taking

out the trash or mowing the lawn.
You should not hesitate to remind the children
that it is time to set the table, especially the little
ones. The other children will then realize that
we are getting close to meal time, and that will
be the sign for them to set aside their games or
homework and wash their hands before heading
to the dining room.
At the beginning, you will ask the little ones
to set only the essential things: plates, glasses,
and silverware, but little by little you will teach
them to go all the way in their chore without
forgetting the details: trivets, serving utensils,
water pitcher, bread basket, butter dish and knife,
napkins, and salt and pepper… So as to have a
well-ordered meal, ensure yourself that at the
end of the table you have the last dishes, be they
cheese or dessert, with the accompanying small
plates. This will avoid unnecessary trips to the
kitchen.

When guests are present, it is the time to
train the older girls in their role of future house
mistress. To prepare a pleasant table is not a
burdensome chore: do we not speak of the arts of
the table? Matching table cloth and napkins, festive
plates, a centerpiece will be set out. They will also
have to foresee the different serving dishes and the
change of plates in function of the menu, without
forgetting the details: for instance, washing
seldom-used dishes, setting up the wine glasses to
the right and the water glasses to the left, etc.
As simple as setting the table may look,
it is a way to develop many qualities in the
children: knowing how to serve, attentiveness,
perseverance, the sense of work well done, that
is to say, in the least details, a sense of harmony,
knowing the rules of etiquette and manners… It
would be a pity not to ask this of your children,
either from not knowing how, or from not
wanting to be helped!

59

Ignatius of Antioch was an Apostolic
Father and student of John the Apostle.
En route to Rome, where he met his
martyrdom by being fed to wild beasts,
he wrote a series of letters, which have
been preserved as an example of very
early Christian theology. Important
topics addressed in these letters include
ecclesiology, the sacraments, and the
role of bishops.

Mission Fields

Central
America
by Fr. Lawrence Novak, SSPX

With the blessing of Almighty God the
apostolate continues in Central America. The
countries concerned are Guatemala, El Salvador,
Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. The
Society has been in these countries for over
twenty years, and the vineyard continues to
increase. This article will explain some of the
details of this varied missionary effort.

Priory in Guatemala
The Society has its priory in the city of
Guatemala. It is part of the Mexican and Central
American District. We now have three priests
(for the first time) and a convent of seven nuns.
The priests are Fr. Michel Boniface, Fr. Pius
Nanthambwe, and Fr. Lawrence Novak—yours

truly. The nuns are Franciscans who arrived
here two years ago to seek protection from
the Society from the modernist errors. That is
a story in itself. First this article will explain
some of the particular Guatemalan customs that
are observed in both the priory and downtown
church of the Society. Then it will talk about the
life at our priory. And finally we will see some of
the work of the Society in the mission field.
One of the more impressive things that one
notices at church in Guatemala is the emphasis
on processions and carrying shoulder-biers with
various statues on top. These platforms are well
decorated. Eight people at least are assigned
with the privilege of carrying the image. And
even then it is necessary that there be several
teams to continue carrying the precious cargo.
A particular custom of our parish church is
61

Christian Culture
the regular assembling of different side altars
for various feasts during the year. Precious
statues in the Guatemalan style are used along
with decorations which bespeak the feast being
celebrated. These altars require days of work to
assemble.
The Society’s priory in Guatemala has the
unique situation of being composed of the
priory itself—located in a sedate suburban area
about 10 miles west of the city—and the parish
church, which is located in the downtown area.
The difference between the two environments
is the difference between sanity and madness,
especially when one considers the traffic, but we
must do whatever we can to bring the Faith to
souls. It is true that the downtown parish attracts
many more new people than the tranquil priory
chapel.
Speaking of the priory, the life here is how it
should be. All priories in the Mexican and Central
American District are responsible for giving their
own retreats, usually to the souls in their charge
either at the priory or its dependent missions.
The priory is therefore also a retreat house
with accommodations for eighteen retreatants.
However, there has been a change within the
last two years with the arrival of the seven nuns
seeking refuge at our priory. One of the buildings
formerly used as retreatant quarters is now the
convent. This reduces our retreatant capacity by
eight bedrooms.

Franciscan Sisters
But the nuns are not without their worth!
We are the envy of the district to actually have
a priory with nuns. Even though we do not
see it very often, the norm envisioned by the
Archbishop was that every priory would have at
least three priests and a convent of nuns to give
solidity to the prayer life at the priory, to teach
Catechism to the youngsters, and to support the
priests by taking care of the physical needs of
the priory. We have all of that with the presence
of the Franciscan sisters here with us. They are
always present for all the chapel offices, and they
take care of the sacristy and kitchen. They are
also dedicated to providing all the material needs
62

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January - February 2015

of the retreats.
One might ask: “But where did these nuns
come from?” These nuns come from the
management staff of a home for disabled children
here in the country of Guatemala. The priest who
used to direct them has always been a faithful
reader of the Si Si No No newspaper. When Pope
Benedict XVI announced the non-abrogation of
the Traditional Mass he learned how to say it
again. He guided these nuns in an anti-liberal
fashion. The problem is that these nuns belonged
to a congregation which was bigger than his
home for disabled children. They started to
be persecuted. Their superiors made sure to
separate them and put them in various houses
away from each other and the good influence of
the anti-liberal priest. There was contact between
this priest and our priory, and also between these
nuns and our priory. Finally an agreement was
reached that the Society would take care of these
nuns as a companion order under observation
from our superiors. They were given the word
that they needed to pass at least three years of
probation with us before their statutes and way of
life were completely approved. In the meantime
the nuns have continued with their religious life
and the forming of new nuns. Actually, three of
the vocations are novices, one is a postulant, and
the other three are professed. To be precise, the
convent is actually a novitiate. There are already
two more pre-postulants due to enter within the
next couple months.
As you can tell, the nuns’ situation is not
completely normal, but it is the best we can do for
the moment. The ideal is that the nuns have their
own piece of property not too far from the priory,
so that they can attend the daily Mass and offices
and still look after the needs of the priory. This
would give the nuns their privacy and personal
identity, which is certainly due to them, and it
would give us back all the rooms of our retreat
center. We pray for it all the time, and we confide
in Divine Providence to help this little religious
order develop.

Tuxtla Gutierrez
And finally, the mission field. Our priory

takes care of the city of Tuxtla Gutierrez (in the
country of Mexico), the city of Quetzaltenango
(here in the country of Guatemala), and the
countries of El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua,
and Honduras. The visits to Tuxtla Gutierrez,
Quetzaltenango, and El Salvador are once a
month. The visits to the other four places can be
once every three months, six months, or as much
as a year, depending. We are definitely in the
missionary stages!

Apostolate Situation
Since this author has not yet visited all the
locations we will only focus on some of the
highlights of a few of the places. To begin with,
one must understand that the people of the
southeastern part of Mexico (our mission in
Tuxtla Gutierrez) and the country of Guatemala
are very similar. Both belong to the Mayan
Region. The national border is somewhat
artificial. Something else that one must
understand is that since the 1870s, almost 150
years ago, there has been a huge Masonic effort
on the part of the government to Protestantize
the people in all of Central America, and perhaps
the southeastern part of Mexico by extension.
The average ratio of Protestant population
throughout all the Central American countries is
an alarming 50 percent. It is one of the queerest
experiences for a United States “gringo” to run
into traditionally dressed indigenous “Christians”
telling him how the Catholic Church is not right!
One would think that in these countries colonized
by Catholic Spain there would not be pluralism.
Therefore we have no shame when we go to these
areas to use the same “bullets” that they use
towards the one true religion. We go armed with
pamphlets and Catechism books, ready to engage
anyone in conversation.
Tuxtla Gutierrez in the state of Chiapas of
Mexico is a ministry that the Society has had for
a long time—about twenty years. The mission
suffers from not being centrally located. The
closest priory is in Orizaba, Veracruz, which
is eight hours to the northwest, but they have
many responsibilities in Puebla, Oaxaca, and

Tlaxiaco. Therefore Guatemala takes care of this
mission, which requires between thirteen and
fifteen hours of travel. There are several good
families there, and the mission has received
the visit of the pilgrim statue of Our Lady of
Fatima, thus becoming a member of the Cruzada
Cordimariana—the Crusade of the Immaculate
Heart of Mary. The people are very generous and
always help the priests in transferring shipments
of books and luggage from one country to the
next. They are the Mass center which is closest to
the border between Mexico and Guatemala.
Quetzaltenango—or Xelaju (its original
Mayan name)—is a city four hours to the west of
our priory, up in the mountains. We are grateful
for the apostolate there because it happens to be
the hub where our Franciscan sisters met and
worked together. The nuns have a great affection
for this city. Because of this there is a well
convinced group of people who wish to follow
the Traditional Church there. At present we are
meeting for Mass in a bakery which belongs to
one of our parishioners. It is affectionately called
“the Catacomb.” We have thirty parishioners, but
we know that there are at least another fifty who
are able to find the Traditional Mass by another
venue, but not forever. That is why it is essential
that we maintain our presence until Divine
Providence sees fit to give us more responsibility
in that location. The visits are from Friday to
Monday. We always visit the local hospital on
Saturday, hearing Confessions, giving Extreme
Unction, baptizing in some cases, and giving the
Traditional doctrine. This is an apostolate which
we share with about fifteen of the parishioners
there.
Nicaragua. When an American hears the word
he thinks of the Ortega / Sandinista crisis that
arose there in the early eighties. One thinks of
Communism and the stealing of the election. To
this day all the trees that line the open highway
are painted with a red and black bar of paint
in honor of the revolution. All these things are
true, but they have not been strong enough to
take away the Catholic Faith completely. Two
weeks ago (November 24-29) we visited the
country for a week. We had the privilege of
63

Christian Culture
being accompanied by a young man who fled the
country for the United States back during the
difficult years. He brought us to his home town of
Jinotega, about three hours north of the capital
city of Managua, where we were able to celebrate
the Traditional Mass and catechize several adults
in the Traditional Faith. Some important contacts
were made and renewed. We were able to visit a
young priest who now is saying the Traditional
Latin Mass exclusively. We visited a convent
which had received this priest for a length of
time and was grateful for the Traditional Latin
Mass. We visited two bishops. One of them is well
known for his support of Fr. Nicholas Gruner
and the Fatima Crusade and for his fight against
Liberation Theology ever since the 1980s—and he
is located in one of the hottest zones of this error.
He is interested in Tradition as a counterweight
to all of the Communist influence that surrounds
him. It is because of this bishop’s firm stand that
the young priest mentioned above has committed
to celebrate the Traditional Mass. The other
bishop that we visited was more of an occasion
for us to show him support and give him our
encouragement. He is known to be a friend of
the first bishop. He particularly liked our gift of
books, principally the books by St. Alphonsus de
Liguori. They know exactly who we are, and they
do not throw us out.
We visited a monastery which is in the diocese
of the first bishop. We celebrated a public Mass
there. The monks were grateful to assist at the
Traditional Mass. They invited parishioners to
come and attend. It was a Thursday morning
at 10:00. There were more than thirty people
present. We were invited to hear Confessions.
After Mass we gave Catechism along with the
distribution (in some cases—sale) of many
books. On Friday we spent the afternoon as
street preachers, handing out pamphlets to all the
people that were detained in traffic and speaking
to anyone that was interested in the true doctrine
of the Church.

centers all over the country. For one thing, that
would not be possible given our limited number
of priests and resources. But we are interested in
encouraging priests and bishops who are already
leaning towards Tradition. And if we can give a
few people hope by presenting the Traditional
doctrine to them again, this is already a victory.
And finally, the missions that this writer
has not had the opportunity to visit yet.
In respect to El Salvador, we have a monthly
mission there. Word has it that almost one
hundred people attended a one-day retreat given
by one of our priory’s priests a few weeks ago.
These are not all parishioners, but they are
people who are interested in Tradition. In Costa
Rica there were four different places visited by
one of our priests over a month ago. There was
much enthusiasm in each location. Conferences
were given. Mass was celebrated. Books were
distributed. This visit only happens three times
a year at the most. We have yet to consolidate
the work there. We are still in the stage of seeing
what would be the most productive area to focus
on. Honduras is still an area that this author
knows nothing about, but there will be more
news to come in the future.
It would be good to close with an anecdote: A
Jesuit priest dressed as a layman once received
one of our pamphlets from us. He said in a tone
of rebuke: “Let the sects deceive the people! Stop
trying to fight it!” He might have been saying this
because as a relativist he would want to respect
everyone’s different approach to God. Or because
of the priest shortage he might be just as happy
with the people going over to the sects. In any
case, the same Jesuit happened to meet the same
priest that gave him the pamphlet a few days
later in an airport. He told the priest: “What you
say is true. May God bless you for your efforts.”
Conclusion: We may not always be able to see the
good results of our work, but the Master of the
vineyard still has His effect on souls.
Fr. Lawrence Novak
Prior, Guatemala

The Laborers Are Few
A reflection on Nicaragua: I do not think
we are particularly interested in making Mass
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(Clockwise from top left)
Retreat in San Salvadore.
Fr. Novak’s Mass in the priory church.
Street apostolate in Guatemala City.
The priests and nuns of the Guatemala priory.
Procession of the Immaculate Conception in
Guatemala City.
Mass in Nicaragua.

Simeon gives back to Mary the
Child she is going to offer to
the Lord. The two doves are
presented to the Priest, who
sacrifices them on the altar; the
price for the ransom is paid;
the whole law is satisfied; and
after having paid homage to her
Creator in this sacred place,
where she spent her early years,
Mary, with Jesus pressed to her
bosom, and her faithful Joseph by
her side, leaves the Temple.
Such is the mystery of this
40th day, which closes, by
this admirable Feast of the
Purification, the holy Season
of Christmas. Several learned
writers are of the opinion that
this solemnity was instituted by
the Apostles themselves. This
much is certain, that it was a
long-established feast even in the
fifth century.

Christian Culture

by SSPX priests

Would you tell us something
about Michael Davies?
The Angelus, ten years ago, published
interesting articles on the new Chesterton or
Belloc of the modern age, Michael Davies. Would
you consider writing something more about this
interesting Knight of Tradition?
We might certainly think of putting an article
together within the next months to acknowledge
this great man. There is little doubt that Michael
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Davies was a wonderful advocate of tradition in
his own capacity. British by birth and a teacher
by profession, he was an articulate scholar and
a man of great sincerity for the faith he had
converted to after he left the Baptist Church.
Witnesses to this are the various books which
the Angelus Press published and carried time and
again: the triple Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre
(he died while working on the fourth volume); his
famous Liturgical Revolution trilogy including
Cranmer’s Godly Order, Pope John’s Council,
and Pope Paul’s New Mass. He wrote a classic

work on the subject of religious freedom: The
Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty.
All these books are available at angeluspress.org.
He is described in the ecclesiastical world
as “internationally, one of the most prolific
traditionalist apologists.” Despite some
hesitations over the bold move Archbishop
Lefebvre took in consecrating bishops to secure
“the survival of Tradition,” he never retracted
his support of the traditional movement at large
to his dying breath. From 1992 to 2004, he was
the President of the international Traditionalist
Catholic organization Una Voce. He died on
September 25, 2004, aged 68, following a battle
with cancer. We may only wish that other
powerful pens and mouths may arise to follow in
his footsteps to defend the Faith and the Mass of
all time.

Do we have two popes
leading the Church?
The concept of pope emeritus, which former
Pope Benedict XVI has gladly endorsed, is raising
eyebrows or strange hopes among conservatives.
What are we to think of the term emeritus? Are
we back in a situation like the one that prevailed
during the Western Schism, when there were two
popes leading the Church?
It is not unusual to hear of friends speaking of
the status of Benedict XVI. On the appearance of
a new book examining the validity of Benedict’s
resignation, someone raised forceful questions,
which I offer to you because it puts in writing
what many are thinking in their heart of hearts.
“Who is at the helm? Many liked how Francis
began. It seemed like a return to the simplicity
of the Gospel. However, many faithful are now
disappointed. What was expected was a moral

rigor against the ‘filth’ (also within ecclesiastical
circles) denounced and fought by Ratzinger. But
how should we interpret the signal given by the
new pontificate to the world, that of laxity and
surrender on moral principles? And the surrender
against anti-Christian ideologies and forces, even
persecutors? And the traumatic break with the
tradition of the Church? A lot of supernatural
events, from the apparitions at Fatima to the
vision of Leo XIII and the prophecies of Blessed
Anne Catherine Emmerich on the age of the “two
Popes,” seem to point to our times, announcing
catastrophic events for the papacy, the Church,
and the world. Are they inevitable or is there
another way? And with which Pope?”
Yet, when all the rhetoric is over, the question
boils down to whether it makes sense to speak
of ‘Pope emeritus.’ On his website Chiesa Nuova,
Sandro Magister clears up the question with a
few authoritative voices.
Manuel Jesus Arroba, teaching Canon Law
at the Lateran, explained: “Juridically, there is
only one pope. A ‘Pope emeritus’ cannot exist.”
Another luminary of Canon Law, Gianfranco
Ghirlanda, S.J., rector at the Gregorian, gave his
verdict in March 2013 in the quasi official Civiltà
Cattolica: “It is evident that the Pope who has
given his demission is not Pope anymore and
cannot take part in any governmental decision.
One may ask which title will be preserved by
Benedict XVI. We think that he should be given
the title of bishop emeritus of Rome, as any other
diocesan bishop who yielded his office.”
Yet Benedict XVI did not follow this road and
wished to be called “Pope emeritus.” We recall
here that Pius XII, when he predisposed a letter
of dismissal to be released should the Germans
arrive to arrest him, said to his most intimate
collaborators: “When the Germans cross this line,
they will not find the Pope, but Cardinal Pacelli.”

69

Christian Culture

What are Roberto de
Mattei’s thoughts on the
“Pope Emeritus”?
As a Church historian, Roberto de Mattei has
written much about the papacy and, in this issue,
has much to say about Romanitas. What are his
thoughts on the matter of the “Pope Emeritus”?
“In my judgment, the admirers of Benedict XVI
need to repulse the temptation of accrediting this
thesis which turns to their advantage. Among
conservatives, in fact, some have already started
to murmur that, if the crisis grows, the existence
of two Popes would allow one to oppose
Benedict XVI, the Pope emeritus, to Francis, the
Pope in office. This is a position distinct from
sedevacantism, but characterized by the same
theological weakness.
“In time of crisis it is important to look at the
institutions and the indestructible principles
of the Church, and not at men, who are weak
and mortal. The papacy is founded on a specific
theology, which teaches that Peter received
his divine mission immediately from Christ.
All others in the Church, priests and bishops,
receive their canonical mission from Peter or his
successor ‘so as to have unity in the Apostolic
college’ (St. Thomas Aq., Ad Gentes, IV, c. 7).
“As regards the sacrament of Order, the pope
is no greater than any other bishop. He is their
superior in that he has received his jurisdiction
from Peter, who received it himself from Christ.
This divine mission is transmitted to each papal
successor, not by heredity, but through the
legitimate election freely accepted, whether the
candidate is a bishop or not. Papal primacy is
not sacramental, but juridical. It consists in the
full power of feeding, ruling, and governing the
entire Church with supreme, ordinary, immediate
jurisdiction, universal and independent of any
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January - February 2015

earthly authority. Thus is pope he who enjoys
the supreme power of jurisdiction, the plenitudo
potestatis, because he governs the Church.
“Nowadays we tend to divinize and absolutize
that which in the Church is human, such as
ecclesiastical persons, and instead to humanize
and relativize that which in the Church is
divine: its faith, its sacraments, its Tradition.
Serious consequences result from this error on
psychological and spiritual levels.
“Pope Francis can be criticized, even severely,
with all due respect, but he must be regarded as
supreme pontiff until his death or until a possible
loss of his pontificate. Benedict XVI has not given
up a part of the papacy, but the whole papacy, and
Pope Francis is not Pope part-time, but is entirely
Pope. How he exercises his power is, of course,
another matter. But even in this case, theology
and the sensus fidei give us the tools to resolve
all of the theological and canonical problems that
may arise in the future.”

160 pp. – Softcover – STK# 8620Q – $15.95

Vatican Encounter
Conversations with
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
by José Hanu

This book is a long interview between Archbishop Lefebvre and a Dutch Catholic journalist in 1976. It
covers everything from the Archbishop’s family background in Northern France to the veneration of the
Senegalese people to their bishop and his anti-liberal interdict on the Island of Fadiouth. It includes the
courageous attacks made by the Archbishop at the Council, as well as his letter of 1966, one year after
the Council. It also features the story of Ecône, the dreary days of of the apostolic visitors, and the accusations and sanctions against the seminary.
Yet beyond the wonderful details of the book are underlined the vital principles which animated the
founder of the Society of St. Pius X, the same principles which all its members hold as definitive and
nonnegotiable. This work reveals a striking characteristic of the man, a mind and heart deeply at peace
in the thick of pressure: “I am not worried. God is almighty; what appears insurmountable to us is only a
little thing in his eyes. If my work is God’s work, God will preserve it and make it serve the Church for the
salvation of souls.”

Order yours today at www.angeluspress.org
or call 1-800-966-7337

News from Tradition
Cardinal Burke’s Latest Interview
In early December, soon after his demotion from
Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura to Patron of
the Sovereign Order of Malta, Raymond Cardinal
Burke gave an interview to Gloria.tv in which
he discussed many pertinent issues in the life
of the Church today. What is of greatest interest
about the interview is the straightforwardness of
His Eminence’s answers and the assessment put
forward regarding Vatican II. Here are a few of
Cardinal Burke’s comments.
The entire video of the interview may be found
here: http://gloria.tv/media/v6WpZoaFx8t and is
well worth viewing.
When asked if he embraced the “big changes”
after the Council with enthusiasm, Cardinal Burke
responded:
“What happened soon after the Council—I
was in the minor seminary at that time, and we
followed what was happening at the Council—but
the experience after the Council was so strong
and even in some cases violent, that I have to say
that, even as a young man, I began to question
some things—whether this was really what was
intended by the Council—because I saw many
beautiful things that were in the Church suddenly
no longer present and even considered no longer
beautiful. I think, for instance, of the great
tradition of Gregorian Chant or the use of Latin
in the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy. Then
also, of course, the so-called ‘Spirit of Vatican II’
influenced other areas—for instance, the moral
life, the teaching of the Faith—and then we saw so
many priests abandoning their priestly ministry,
so many religious sisters abandoning religious life.
So, there were definitely aspects about the postconciliar period that raised questions.”
Noting that His Eminence was ordained a priest
in 1975, the interviewer then asked him if thought
that, at that time, something in the Church had
gone wrong. Cardinal Burke answered:
“Yes, I believe so. In some way, we lost a strong
sense of the centrality of the Sacred Liturgy and,
therefore, of the priestly office and ministry in the
Church. I have to say, I was so strongly raised in
the Faith, and had such a strong understanding
of vocation, that I never could refuse to do what
Our Lord was asking. But I saw that there was
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something that had definitely gone wrong. I
witnessed, for instance, as a young priest the

Raymond Leo Burke (born June 30, 1948) is an American
cardinal prelate. He serves as the patron of the Sovereign
Military Order of Malta, a position widely interpreted as a
demotion from his previous position as Cardinal Prefect of
the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, which he
held until November 2014. Burke previously served as the
archbishop of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, Missouri (2003–
2008) and as the bishop of the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin
(1994–2003). He is a prominent canon lawyer and is often
perceived as a voice of conservatism in the Roman Catholic
Church and American politics.

emptiness of the catechesis. The catechetical
texts were so poor. Then I witnessed the liturgical
experimentations—some of which I just don’t even
want to remember—the loss of the devotional life,
the attendance at Sunday Mass began to steadily
decrease: all of those were signs to me that
something had gone wrong.”
Cardinal Burke had this to say when asked if, in
1975, he would ever have imagined being able to
offer the Traditional Mass:
“No, I would not have imagined it. Although, I

also have to say that I find it very normal, because
it was such a beautiful rite, and that the Church
recovered it seems to me to be a very healthy
sign. But, at the time, I must say that the liturgical
reform in particular was very radical and, as I
said before, even violent, and so the thought of
a restoration didn’t seem possible, really. But,
thanks be to God, it happened.”
Regarding the two juridical “forms” of Holy
Mass,1 His Eminence was asked about his concrete
experience when offering a Pontifical High Mass in
the Traditional and Novus Ordo rite. He answered:
“…I understand that they are the same rite,
and I believe that, when the so-called New Rite or
the Ordinary Form is celebrated with great care
and with a strong sense that the Holy Liturgy is
the action of God, one can see more clearly the
unity of the two forms of the same rite. On the
other hand, I do hope that—with time—some of
the elements which unwisely were removed from
the rite of the Mass which has now become the
Ordinary Form could be restored, because the
difference between the two forms is very stark…
The rich articulation of the Extraordinary Form,
all of which is always pointing to the theocentric
nature of the liturgy, is practically diminished to
the lowest possible degree in the Ordinary Form.”
Speaking about the Synod on the Family,2 the
interviewer noted that it has been a shock and
sometimes even a scandal, especially for young
Catholic families who are the future of the Church.
He then asked Cardinal Burke if these families
have reason to worry. Cardinal Burke answered:
“Yes, they do. I think that the report that was
given at the mid-point of the session of the Synod,
which just ended 18 October, is perhaps one of the
most shocking public documents of the Church
that I could imagine. And, so, it is a cause for very
serious alarm and it’s especially important that
good Catholic families who are living the beauty of
the Sacrament of Matrimony rededicate themselves
to a sound married life and that also they use
whatever occasions they have to give witness to
the beauty of the truth about marriage which they
are experiencing daily in their married life.”
Speaking about the ordinary Synod on
the Family to take place in October 2015, the
interviewer noted that many Catholics fear that,
in the end, the Synod of Bishops will resort to

doublespeak, using pastoral reasons to de facto
change doctrine. Cardinal Burke was then asked if
these fears are justified. He responded:
“Yes, they are. In fact, one of the most insidious
arguments used at the Synod to promote practices
which are contrary to the doctrine of the Faith
is the argument that, ‘We are not touching the
doctrine; we believe in marriage as the Church
has always believed in it; but we are only making
changes in discipline.’ But in the Catholic Church,
this can never be, because in the Catholic Church,
her discipline is always directly related to her
teaching. In other words: the discipline is at the
service of the truth of the Faith, of life in general
in the Catholic Church. And so, you cannot say
that you are changing a discipline not having
some effect on the doctrine which it protects or
safeguards or promotes.”
Speaking about the power and authority of the
Pope, Cardinal Burke had this to say:
“The word of Christ is the truth to which
we are all called to be obedient and, first and
foremost, to which the Holy Father is called to be
obedient. Sometime during the Synod, there was
reference made to the fullness of the power of
the Holy Father, which we call in Latin plenitudo
potestatis, giving the sense that the Holy Father
could even, for instance, dissolve a valid marriage
that had been consummated. And that’s not true.
The ‘fullness of power’ is not absolute power.
It’s the ‘fullness of power’ to do what Christ
commands of us in obedience to Him. So we all
follow Our Lord Jesus Christ, beginning with the
Holy Father.”
As was noted above, Cardinal Burke’s entire
interview is more than worth the time to view. In
addition, it would behoove all to keep the good
Cardinal in our prayers that his faith may not
waver in the days ahead.
1

It should be noted that the Synod on the Family has been divided
into two parts. The first, the “extraordinary” synod took place
last October. The “ordinary” synod, which will result in an official
“Apostolic Exhortation” from the Holy Father, will take place in
October 2015.

2

In his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum which allowed
every Latin Rite priest to offer the Traditional Mass without any
permission from his bishop or superior, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of
there being two “forms” of the Roman Rite: the ordinary form (the
Novus Ordo Missae) and the extraordinary form (the Traditional
Mass). He declared that both these forms are, for juridical purposes,
equivalent.

73

News from Tradition
Cardinal Tauran Appointed Camerlengo
of the Holy Roman Church
On Saturday, 20 December, Pope Francis
appointed His Eminence, Jean-Louis Cardinal
Tauran as Camerlengo of the Holy Roman
Church. The Cardinal was born on 5 April 1943
in Bordeaux, France. On 29 March 2014, he
was confirmed as president of the Pontifical
Council for Interreligious Dialogue by Pope
Francis, a post which he will continue to hold in
addition to being Camerlengo. Cardinal Tauran
replaces Cardinal Bertone (the former Cardinal
Secretary of State under Pope Benedict XVI),
who retired from the position having reached
the age of 80 and no longer able to participate in
a conclave to elect a new pope.
The Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church
is responsible for the formal determination of
the death of the reigning Pope. After the Pope
is declared dead, the Camerlengo destroys
the “Ring of the Fisherman” of the deceased
pontiff, an act which symbolically marks the
end of his reign and prevents its use in forging
documents. The Camerlengo then notifies the
appropriate officers of the Roman Curia and
the Dean of the College of Cardinals. He then
manages the preparations for the Pope’s funeral
and the conclave. Additionally, until the election
of the new pope, the Camerlengo serves as the
acting head of state of Vatican City, though
the government of the Church is in the hands

of the entire College of Cardinals. Unlike the
rest of Roman Curia (with the exception of the
Cardinal Major Penitentiary), the Camerlengo
retains his office during the sede vacante.

The Vatican Visitation of the LCWR Orders
In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI ordered an apostolic
visitation of all the women’s religious orders in the
United States. This was done in order to answer
the many concerns being expressed that many of
these orders had lost their way and had fallen into
many practices which more resembled paganism
rather than Catholicism. Of particular concern
were those orders which were part of the national
organization known as the LCWR (Leadership
Conference of Woman Religious), whose yearly
“conventions” often featured speakers of dubious
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orthodoxy, if not outrightly heretical. The LCWR
represents the vast majority of orders of nuns
in the United States, orders which are rapidly
dying out for lack of vocations. Another national
organization of women religious was founded
by the superiors of orders who maintain a more
traditional (read: Catholic) understanding. The
Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious
(CMSWR) was begun in 1992 in response to the
deviations from Catholicism taken by the LCWR
and their member orders. Needless to say, the

orders belonging to the CMSWR were not the focus
of the apostolic visitation.
In December 2014, the Vatican issued the final
report concerning the visitation and, sadly, the
report seems to ignore or at least downplay the
glaring problems known so well by Catholics in
the United States. The entire report can be read
here: http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/
en/bollettino/pubblico/2014/12/16/0963/02078.html.
The most distressing part of all of this is the
comparison of this report and the treatment of the
LCWR orders with the “visitation” carried out by
the Vatican of the Franciscan Friars and Sisters
of the Immaculate. These exemplary religious,
with many young vocations, were singled out
because, following Summorum Pontificum, they
enthusiastically embraced the Traditional Mass
and Breviary which gained for them the charge

of being, in the words of the apostolic visitor,
“crypto-Lefebvrians.” It appears that being a
religious who is “pro-choice” or who celebrates the
winter solstice (IHM Sisters, Monroe, Michigan—
the advertisement for their Winter Solstice
“celebration” has been removed from their website
after it was publicized on a traditional blog) is just
fine with the Vatican, but wanting to assist at the
Traditional Mass is problematic.
It is also important to note that not all the
religious in the various orders represented by the
LCWR agree with what is going on (though they
are a small minority). These sisters are indeed
suffering a white martyrdom as they try to live the
Catholic religious life (community prayer, common
life and the religious habit) but are ridiculed and
ostracized by their orders. Keep them in your
prayers.

Vatican Philatelic Office Honors St. Pius X
While most curial officials and offices at the Vatican have had
very little to say about the centenary of the death of St. Pius X, the
Philatelic Office has noted the event by issuing a commemorative
stamp which depicts the statue of the saint in St. Peter’s Basilica.
The official description of the stamp and the centenary states, in
part, the following:
“In 1907 he promulgated his encyclical, Pascendi Dominici
Gregis, which challenged the doctrines of the modernists. Pope
Pius X showed the same humility and great simplicity in living out
Christian virtues also in the Vatican. It was said that one could
sense his interior peace which could only come from a person
placing his entire life in the hands of God.”
Although one can correctly note that Pascendi Dominici
Gregis did much more than “challenge” modernism and those that
held this “synthesis of all heresies,” at least mention was made of
the encyclical which is infinitely more than was done by anyone
else in the Vatican.
An image of the stamp and the full description can be found at
the website of the Philatelic Office (http://www.vaticanstate.va/content/vaticanstate/en/servizi/ufficiofilatelico-e-numismatico/emissioni-filateliche/emissioni-filateliche—2014/centenario-della-mortedi-san-pio-x.html). All of the stamps issued by Vatican City since its inception can be viewed at this
website as well.
The Vatican Philatelic Office came into existence as a result of the Lateran Treaty signed by the
Holy See and the Italian government. This Treaty recognized Vatican City as a sovereign entity and on
1 June 1929, Vatican City was admitted to the Universal Postal Union and the Vatican Postal Service
was created on 30 July of the same year and began operations two days later on 1 August.
75

News from Tradition
Pope Francis, the United States, and Cuba
The Vatican has confirmed that Pope Francis
was involved in the re-establishment of diplomatic
relations between the United States and Cuba.
The pope wrote to both Barack Obama and Fidel
Castro urging the leaders to resolve humanitarian
questions and the status of certain prisoners and
to enter into a new phase of relations between
the two countries. While some applauded the
pope’s initiative behind the re-establishment of
diplomatic relations, many did not—particularly
Cuban refugees and their families now living in the
United States after fleeing the Castro communist
regime in the early 1960s.
The Associated Press has reported that “the
key role Pope Francis played encouraging talks
between Presidents Barack Obama and Raul
Castro left fractures among his flock in South
Florida, where many older Roman Catholics
equate the Castro brothers with the devil.
“ ‘I’m still Catholic till the day I die,’ said Efrain
Rivas, a 53-year-old maintenance man in Miami
who was a political prisoner in Cuba for 16 years.
‘But I am a Catholic without a pope.’ Rivas said
he cried when Obama surprisingly announced a
reversal of a half-century’s efforts to isolate Cuba.
Then, when he learned of Francis’s role, he got
angry. ‘The Church is contaminated,’ said Miguel
Saavedra, a 57-year-old Miami mechanic who leads
an anti-Castro group and wears a gold cross as a

sign of his Catholic faith. Exiles incensed by the
diplomacy openly wonder: Was Francis strongarmed by President Barack Obama? Does he
understand how terrible the Castro brothers are?
Was he perhaps making a foolhardy bid to cement
his change-making image? ‘I don’t know what the
pope was thinking,’ said Jose Sanchez-Gronlier,
a 53-year-old lawyer who said he was persecuted
for his faith until leaving Cuba as a teenager, and
will never forget watching the government seize a
convent near his childhood home. ‘I see a certain
naivete in the pope,’ he said. Sen. Marco Rubio,
a Cuban-American from Florida who has led
the Republicans’ criticism of Obama’s executive
actions on Cuba, also took a swipe at the pope,
telling reporters in Washington that he would
‘ask His Holiness to take up the cause of freedom
and democracy.’ Jay Fernandez, a retiree who left
Cuba in 1961, said Francis acted like a beggar,
taking whatever scraps of concessions the Cuban
government offered.
“ ‘He wants to be everywhere, he wants to be
liked by everyone,’ Fernandez said. ‘That’s his job
to be a peace guy, but it doesn’t accomplish a damn
thing, especially in Cuba.’ ” 1
1
Available: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CUBAN_
AMERICAN_CATHOLICS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE
=DEFAULT

Blessing of the Crèche at the European Parliament Building
On 9 December 2014 Bishop Fellay traveled to
Brussels in order to bless the crèche which was
erected in the lobby of the European Parliament
building at the invitation of Italian MEP Mario
Borghezio. The Nativity scene was placed in
the lobby at the initiative of Civitas Institute.
The president of the French Civitas Institute,
Alain Escada, stated that the baby Jesus in the
manger should rule over all nations, since all
power comes from God. He then quoted Pope St.
Pius X: “Civilization must not be contrived, for it
was, it is and it has been a Christian civilization,
it is the Catholic society. To restore it merely

76

The Angelus

January - February 2015

requires the unceasing renewal of its natural
and divine principles.”
For his part, Bishop Fellay reiterated the
importance of the social reign of Jesus Christ.
His Excellency stated: “That’s where it all
started, in the crib. It is therefore natural that
European leaders pay homage to the God who
comes among men to save them, He who is
the King of Kings. We must remember what
Cardinal Pie said to Napoleon III: ‘If the time
has not yet come for Christ to reign, then the
time has not yet come for governments to last.’”

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work of Catholic Tradition—the Society of St. Pius X. Drawing heavily on new interviews conducted
with his family, friends, priests who worked with him in Africa, as well as many who knew him, this
telling of Archbishop Lefebvre’s life is like no other.

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or call 1-800-966-7337

News from Tradition

Romanitas
by Fr. Jean-Michel Gleize

These are extracts from the lecture given by Fr.
Jean-Michel Gleize, Ecône professor of Ecclesiology,
to the Dominican Teaching Sisters of Fanjeaux on July
22, 2014. He dealt with the topic of Romanitas in time of
crisis. We are Catholics, and thus Roman. But how ought
we to be Roman today? After characterizing the Rome
of Antiquity and of civilization, he comes to the Christian
Rome. And here is the conclusion:
The Roman Spirit of Some and not Others.
At Vatican II, the redefinition of the Church with
the expression “subsistit in” [i.e. the Church of Christ
subsists in the Catholic Church—not is the Catholic
Church] results in the radical destruction of the
Church’s quality of being Roman. This change in
definition is the profound explanation for what we
have been able to observe in the concrete life of the
Church, thrown into confusion by the triple offensive of collegiality, religious liberty, and ecumenism.
Collegiality attacks Romanitas in its very being by
destroying the primacy; religious freedom attacks

78

The Angelus

January - February 2015

it in its governance; and ecumenism attacks it in its
roles of teaching and sanctifying.

Collegiality
The root of the problem is the confusion caused by
the Council over the power of order and the power of
jurisdiction. Until then, the magisterium had always
taught that while all bishops, including the pope,
receive the same power of order in the same way—by
their consecration, they do not receive in the same
way the same power of jurisdiction since the pope
receives a supreme and universal power directly from
God, whereas the other bishops each individually
receive a subordinate and limited power, not directly
from God but from the pope.
The Constitution Lumen Gentium, Article 21, teaches that episcopal consecration confers both powers.
This implies that the power of jurisdiction is received
by all in the same way, that is, directly from Christ;
it can only involve the same supreme and universal

power, a power the subject of which is the College of
Bishops. Logically, then, what can the pope receive
by his election, if not an honorific power or simple
presidency? Such is the deep-seated logic. The full
import of this underlying logic was blocked at the
time of the Council, and a compromise was agreed
upon in Article 22, in which it is asserted that there is
a dual subject of the primacy—both the pope and the
college with its head the pope (not under its head the
pope, or subject to its head the pope, but with him).
The Prefatory Note emphasizes the idea that the
pope is separately endowed with the primacy, but it
says nothing to annul the other idea that the College
taken as an assembly of which the pope is simply the
president is also the subject of this primacy.
The result is a bifurcated ecclesiology in germ: the
traditional one and a new one. According to the new,
the pope is only the Bishop of Rome and at the most
the official spokesman of the College. It seems that
it is this new ecclesiology that was authorized by the
Council and that triumphed after the Council if one is
to believe what John Paul II declared in his promulgation of the new Code of Canon Law in 1983: “This note
of collegiality, which eminently characterizes and distinguishes the process of origin of the present Code,
corresponds perfectly with the teaching and the
character of the Second Vatican Council,” adding that
the new Code intended to present the Church as the
People of God, the hierarchical constitution of which
“appears based on the College of Bishops united with
its Head.”1 From a similar perspective, the Church
cannot be Roman since it only could be if the Bishop
of Rome were its head in the strict sense of the term,
that is to say, the unique titular of the supreme and
universal power of jurisdiction.

Religious Freedom
The essential point to keep in mind concerning
religious freedom is that the churchmen intended to
renounce the exercise of their coercive power by a
refusal henceforth to impose penalties. This was one
of the essential aspects of the reform undertaken by
John XXIII and Paul VI during Vatican II. In the opening speech of the Council, October 11, 1962, Pope
John XXIII acknowledged that in the past the Church
had unceasingly opposed the errors that threatened
the deposit of faith and that she had frequently con-

demned them with great severity. But “nowadays,”
he added, “the Spouse of Christ prefers to make use
of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity.
She considers that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching
rather than by condemnations.”2
This new approach was to achieve its logical
development in Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious
Liberty. Placing itself in formal contradiction with the
teaching of Pius IX in Quanta Cura, Dignitatis Humanae
sets as a principle the intention of modern churchmen to no longer have recourse to governments to
obtain the repression of violators of the Catholic
religion by means of temporal penalties. Henceforth
is recognized a natural right of all men to not be
prevented from professing their religion, whatever
it may be, true or false, it being stated that this right
is retained even by those who do not live up to their
obligation of seeking the truth in matters religious
and adhering to it.
We should especially note that the principle of
a right to religious liberty is that of the right to be
immune from coercion “on the part of individuals
or of social groups and of any human power”3 —thus,
not only the temporal power of civil authorities, but
even the spiritual power of ecclesiastical authorities.
Vatican II introduced a false right to exemption from
any constraint exercised by any social authority, the
Church as well as the State. This false right is the very
negation of the coercive power that is an essential
element of jurisdiction in civil society as well as in
ecclesiastical society.

Ecumenism
Vatican II teaches that “many elements of sanctification and of truth can be found outside of her
visible structure [compago, social structure]. These
elements, however, as gifts properly belonging to the
Church of Christ, possess an inner dynamism toward
Catholic unity” (Lumen Gentium 8). “Moreover some,
even very many, of the most significant elements of
endowments which together go to build up and give
life to the Church herself can exist outside the visible
boundaries of the Catholic Church: the written word
of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, along
with other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit and visible
elements. All of these, which come from Christ and

79

News from Tradition
lead back to Him, belong by right to the one Church
of Christ....It follows that these separated Churches
and Communities, though we believe they suffer
from defects already mentioned, have by no means
been deprived of significance and importance in the
mystery of salvation. For the Spirit of Christ has not
refrained from using them as means of salvation
which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of
grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church”
(Unitatis Redintegratio §3).
We find once again the negation of papal primacy
because the valid administration of the sacraments,
the profession of a dogma or adherence to a truth
revealed in Sacred Scripture are only salutary if they
are accomplished in the order willed by God, that
is, in dependence on the Vicar of Christ and in the
framework of the divinely instituted social activity
that results from the governance of the Bishop of
Rome. By the very fact that they are outside the
scope of the governance of the pope, who is the only
visible head able to prolong here below the reign
of Christ, the sacraments, dogmas, and Sacred
Scripture, they cannot be salutary.
The assertion that they are salutary is an implicit
assertion that the Catholic primacy of the Bishop of
Rome is not an institution necessary to the Church
of Christ and intended by God for the continuation
of the sanctifying and teaching work of Christ. All of
the documents published after 1965 by the Sacred
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in order
to justify and explain the founding principles of
ecumenism, even as they attempt to neutralize the
excesses of a “para-Council,” nonetheless uphold
the absolutely false idea of a Church of graduated
boundaries,4 for which reason the papacy no longer
appears to be the exclusive principle of unity of the
Church, the rock on which the whole edifice rests.
Papacy needs to be sold off for ecumenical reasons.

“Subsistit In”: A New Definition of the Church
This remaindering of the papacy can be explained
by Vatican II’s new definition of the Church. Vatican
II said in effect that “the Catholic Church is the
Church of Christ” but did not say that “the Church
of Christ is the Catholic Church.” Rather, it said
that “the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic
Church.” The difference in wording (est vs. subsistit

80

The Angelus

January - February 2015

in) corresponds to a difference in the definition of
the Church, for it means that the Church of Christ is
not equivalent to the Catholic Church, the first being
larger than the second.
One may say that the Catholic Church perfectly
achieves the unity willed by Christ, it identifies itself
with the Church of Christ. But one may state as
much in function of radically divergent reasoning.
If we adopt the traditional logic, unity results from
the social order of the unity of faith and worship as it
has been established by the authority of its divinely
instituted hierarchical government.
If we adopt the logic of Vatican II, the unity of
the Church is conceived of in terms of plenitude,
which is equal to the total sum of all the elements of
sanctification and of truth instituted by Christ. In the
Catholic Church, we have plenitude. But outside of
the Catholic Church, in the schismatic or heretical
communities, we also have elements, not all, but a
certain number, more or less large. These are elements which, without being able to constitute unity,
nonetheless more or less approximate unity: they
tend to unity. It is as if Catholicism had ten out of
ten, while the schismatics would have nine out of ten
(they lack only the Bishop of Rome) and the heretics
would score eight, seven or six out of ten (they lack
not only the Bishop of Rome, but also some of the
sacraments). The Church of Christ is gradated.
By this logic, the Bishop of Rome is not the
constitutive element of ecclesiastical order, the
pivot on which the order rests, the rock established
by Christ. He is merely one element among others,
and composes with others the quantitative unity
of fullness. Fundamentally, this presupposes that
the Bishop of Rome is a mere bishop among others
and not the titular of the primacy of jurisdiction. His
role fits into the logic of a certain symbolism: the
Catholic Church is a sacrament; it bears witness
and, in order to be sufficiently representative of the
Church of Christ, it ought to accord with the fullness
of the representative elements of the idea it is supposed to evoke.

Conclusion: Roman Despite Rome?
We desire to remain unshakably attached to the
Holy Roman Catholic Church and to the successor
of Peter, the Vicar of Christ, the supreme head of

the Church. This resolve is absolutely paramount,
for it is the consequence of a necessary principle:
Outside of the Church there is no salvation. It is also
a fact that since the last Council the popes, from
John XXIII to Francis, maintain in principle and put
into practice ideas and orientations that result in
the destruction of the Church and the denial of the
very reality of the divine institution of papal primacy.
There is a new religion, a conciliar ideology.
But for all that, there is not (at least not so far) a
new Church distinct in act from the Catholic Church.
There is only a new Church in potency or in germ,
like a parasite that develops in an organism, with
the danger that the new orientations may result in
schism. Consequently, we need to protect ourselves
against these new orientations if we do not want to
let ourselves be contaminated, and we ought at the
same time to combat them and to extirpate them for
the good of the entire Church. All the more so that
three recent serious events confirm the existence
of a state of emergency: the canonization of John
Paul II, the very equivocal declarations of Pope
Francis who always refers to himself as “the Bishop
of Rome” without further clarification; and the debate over the administration of Holy Communion to
remarried divorcees.
This situation calls for heightened vigilance on
our part regarding all those who foment error. But
this vigilance must take into account the fact that
these tools of error are the appointed representatives of the divinely instituted hierarchy, the Vicar of
Christ and the successors of the Apostles. In order
to understand and justify this vigilance, it behooves
us to know exactly what we mean. If we are speaking
of the errors of the new religion, we are happy not to
share them, but unhappy that the authorities do. If
we speak of tools of error and the present state of
the hierarchy of the Church, we are unhappy about
the present state of the Church, to wit, the fact that
these authorities are infected with modernism, that
they no longer preach the Faith whole and entire,
that they propagate errors and reject us.
And with that, we are happy to be protected from
the baneful influence of these authorities by reason
of the situation that has existed, especially since the
Episcopal consecrations of 1988, which is that of a
certain breach in fact with the authorities. But this
relative good fortune takes place precisely because

of a breach that subtracts us from their bad influence: the good fortune is not in the rupture but in
the accidental result, because the fact of a breach
between Rome and us is in itself an evil over which
we cannot absolutely rejoice, but only incidentally,
that is to say, not by reason of the breach itself, for it
is evil, but by reason of the good it occasions.
The distinction may seem subtle, but it is what
makes the difference between the attitude of
Catholics in a time of crisis and that of schismatics and heretics at all times. The schismatics and
heretics have in common a congenital hatred of
Romanitas. In his renowned treatise on Tradition,
Jean-Baptiste Franzelin even observes that the
Protestants at the end of the 19th century wanted
to establish “hatred of Rome” (der Hass gegen Rom)
as a note of the authentic Gospel5—a note, that is,
a distinctive sign by which the members of a group
can recognize one another and distinguish themselves from their adversaries.
So be careful: far from inspiring mistrust, the
notion of Romanitas, as we have been attempting to
explain thus far, ought to inspire a complete adherence on the part of a Catholic, even if a legitimate
distrust of the men who, from Rome, have been
poisoning the whole world with their errors is warranted. And our adherence should be even firmer, as
we hope we have shown, from the fact that hatred of
Romanitas lies at the center of the new ecclesiology
which emerged from the Second Vatican Council: a
hatred in principle that has been circulating in the
very bosom and heart of the Church like the poison
of error taken from the adversaries of the Catholic
Faith, a poison that has entered the very marrow of
the representatives of the hierarchy and that ought
to be for all of us Catholics worthy of the name a
subject of a keen apprehension and anguish.
Such a situation is far from comfortable. It
requires of us continual alertness and constant attention to all the eventualities. The great historian of
Rome, Pierre Grimal, has left us a detailed description of the ruins of Ostia. The reflections inspired
in him by the ruins of the ancient port are worth
considering:
“It is not long,” he writes, “before one experiences
a kind of uneasiness before this all too perfect city....
What lies before one is a city of the second century
of our era, at a time when the power and wealth

81

News from Tradition
of the Empire were at their apogee, at a time when
the spirit was beginning to fail. These well-ordered
buildings, these markets in which the wheat of
Africa, Sicily, and Egypt were stored up, testify to
deliberate organization, but one wonders if a society
that has reached such a level of perfection like this
one is not already moribund....
“Discomfort, and maybe even misfortune, are
needful for the spirit to live. The human condition
seems to be subject to this hard law. When differences have been effaced and the balance is perfectly horizontal, vital motion dies away and comes
to a stop.”6
The heritage of Rome has to be handed on,
whatever the cost, and Providence should give us
the means of doing so in every age of the history of
the Church. But comfortable solutions are rarely
providential. The men who rule at Rome are in the
process of destroying Rome, and we hope we have
shown—to synthesize all the virulence of the poison
inoculated in the Church since Vatican II—that all of
these errors target the very reality of the papacy,
the Catholic dogma of the primacy of the Bishop of
Rome, and ultimately the very idea of Romanitas.
St. Pius X said that the moves of modernists
plotting the ruin of the Church were all the surer
because they knew best of all where to strike. A century later, this assessment still holds true. Vatican
II will have been the great evil of the last two centuries, but through divine wisdom will have led us to
better realize that His ways are inseparably those of
the Church and of Rome: those of the Holy Roman
Church.
Translated by A. M. Stinnett and edited by Angelus Press.

82

1

John Paul II, Apostolic Constitution Sacrae Disciplinae Leges,
January 25, 1983 [online at vatican.va].

2

The Documents of Vatican II, ed. Walter M. Abbott, S.J. (New
York: Herder and Herder, 1966), p. 716.

3

Declaration on Religious Freedom §2, The Documents of Vatican
II, p. 679.

4

Literally: d’une ecclésialité à géométrie variable.

5

Jean-Baptiste Franzelin, La Tradition, Thesis 4, No. 38, n. 21
(Courrier de Rome, 2008), p. 55.

6

Peter Grimal, Rome: Les siècles et les jours (Arthaud, 1982), p. 37.

The Angelus

January - February 2015

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Iota Unum
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Understanding the Age of Martyrs
Christopher Check
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I Accuse the Council
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Open Letter to Confused Catholics
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
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Archbishop Lefebvre and the Vatican
Fr. François Laisney
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Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
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The
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Dear Readers,
The 150th anniversary of the rediscovery of the Hidden Christians of Japan will
probably go unnoticed this year by most, but it should not be by us. Their three
historical questions to Fr. Petitjean, M.E.P., are as relevant today as they were on
March 17, 1865.
The missionaries, martyrs-to-be, had well trained their Japanese flock on how
to recognize a true Roman Catholic priest, as it would be 225 years before they
would see another one, 1640-1865!
“Do you pray to Santa Maria sama?” asked Pierre, the brave Japanese, as Fr.
Petitjean opened the church to the little group of 15.
“Of course, look at her lovely statue over there!”
“Are you with the Pope of Rome? What is his name?”
“Yes, for sure; it is Pope Pius IX.”
And before leaving the priest, he wanted to be sure that he was truly a successor of the missionaries of old.
“Don’t you have any children?” he asked timidly.
“Don’t you know that true priests don’t marry? Our people are our children.”
Hearing this, Pierre and his companion bowed down all the way to the ground,
exclaiming: “They are virgins! Thank you! Thank you!”
Later in May, a whole Christian village asked for the visit of the missionaries,
and then 600 other Catholics sent a delegation of 20 people to Nagasaki. On June
8th, 25 Christian villages (with about 10,000 hidden Christians) had been identified by the missionaries and 7 ‘baptizers’ were put directly in touch with them.
These will remain forever the three marks of a true priest: to be devoted to our
Blessed Lady, to be attached to Rome, to be celibate.

Fr. Daniel Couture
Source: Les Missions Catholiques Françaises au XIXe siècle, by Fr. J. B. Piolet, S.J.,
(n.d., circa 1900), Vol. III, pp. 440-445.

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