SSPX 50th Anniversary
The Origins of the SSPX
The Archbishop, the Society, and Rome
For the Love of the Church

January - February 2020

“I had a glimpse of this task in a sort of
dream in Dakar around 1958. It could
very well be said that God prepared
me for this task for a very long time.
Blessed be God for His ineffable
inspirations and for the immediate
support from the many benefactors
that this work received, and which even
visibly (the benefactors as well) were
brought by Providence. Did I save the
Catholic priesthood, the Catholic Mass,
and the Catholic Faith? Certain people
attribute these wonderful things to me.
But, you see, I am for nothing in this.”
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre

M
L

Letter
from the
Publisher
Dear Reader,
November 1, 1970, marked the birth of the Society of Saint Pius and the last great work of its
founder, Archbishop Lefebvre. This year, then, we’ll be celebrating throughout the traditionalist
world the golden jubilee of this early event. Jubilee because, from its humble beginnings, it has
brought forth generations of priests, religious, and lay folks who have flown the flag of Tradition
in its fullness. A gilded and glorious jubilee which, despite the growing pains and battle wounds,
has not lost its luster and sharpness.
In this magazine, articles illustrated with copious photos tell the memorable saga of the
founder’s mindset confronted with progressive authorities, of events prior to the foundation,
and of the subsequent growth, attacks, and de facto vindication of the work of Tradition.
Certainly, in our traditional circles, this year’s end will be marked by celebrations, conventions, and prayers. With this year’s first issue, we wanted to anticipate the event by bringing
the bigger picture of the Society, with its Swiss foundation and its inception in Europe. In a later
issue, we’ll concentrate on our own territory to see how God has blessed the American branch
of the Archbishop’s work.
There is little doubt in my mind that, after perusing this issue, most readers will be able to
perceive God’s Providence at work during the struggles, contradictions, and crosses, met
throughout by the close collaborators of our founder. If not perfect, the growth and wide expansion of the SSPX tree and its satellite congregations has borne fruit in much patience. May
these blessings be soon recognized by the highest authorities. No doubt, the entire Church will
see a genuine revival the day Tradition is finally given pride of place in Rome again. Let this be
our wish and our insistant prayer.

Fr. Jürgen Wegner
Publisher

January - February 2020
Volume XLIII, Number 1
Publisher
Fr. Jürgen Wegner
Editor-in-Chief
Mr. James Vogel
Managing Editor
Fr. Dominique Bourmaud
Assistant Editor
Mr. Gabriel Sanchez
Associate Editor
Miss Jane Carver
Design and Layout
credo.creatie
(Eindhoven, The Netherlands)
Mr. Simon Townshend
Director of Operations
Mr. Brent Klaske

		
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Contents
Letter from the Publisher

4

Theme: SSPX 50th Anniversary
— The Origins of the Society of Saint Pius X
— The Archbishop, the Society, and Rome
— For the Love of the Church
— Establishing the First District
— Archbishop Lefebvre and Shakespeare
— Why is the SSPX Necessary?

6
12
18
24
28
34

Spirituality
— St. John’s Use of Words
— The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: The Offertory
— A Bishop for All Seasons
—The Deposit of the Faith

38
42
48
54

Christian Culture
— Book Review: Blessed Leonid Feodorov
— A Rebours, En Route, and Very Much on Target
— Letter to a Young Lady About Strength
— SSPX Sisters: Who Is My Child?

58
62
66
70

“Instaurare omnia in Christo”

The Angelus (ISSN 10735003) is published bi-monthly
under the patronage of St. Pius X and Mary,
Queen of Angels. Publication office is located at
PO Box 217, St. Marys, KS 66536.
PH (816) 753-3150; FAX (816) 753-3557.
Periodicals Postage Rates paid at Kansas City, MO.
Manuscripts and letters to the editor are welcome
and will be used at the discretion of the editors.
The authors of the articles presented here are solely
responsible for their judgments and opinions.
Postmaster sends address changes to the address above.
©2020 BY ANGELUS PRESS. OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE
PRIESTLY SOCIETY OF SAINT PIUS X FOR THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

— Questions and Answers

71

Catechism
— Complex Questions & Simple Answers
— Bishop Schneider on the Problem of a Heretical Pope
— The Last Word

76
80
87

Theme SSPX 50th Anniversary

The Origins
of the Society of Saint Pius X

By Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais

Editor’s Note: This article is based on extracts from the biography of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre by
Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais. They attempt to capture the effort and mood of the Society of Saint
Pius X’s founder in the face of countless difficulties.

As Superior of the Holy Ghost Fathers until
1968, Archbishop Lefebvre was already at work
leading seminarians. Hence, he directed the
20 or so who knocked at his door towards his
own Alma Mater, the French Seminary of Santa
Chiara in Rome. Soon he realized that this option
was not conducive to proper training any longer
both at Santa Chiara and the adjacent Gregorian
University, so he thought of other universities
which could give a Thomistic formation.
In anguish, the seminarians became more
insistent: “Your Grace, if you do not intervene,
the priesthood will be closed off to us.” The
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Archbishop would later say: “I could not have
imagined where that cry of distress would lead.
With great sorrow we had to give in and look
for other places, other universities.” Two were
still sound in what they taught: the Lateran
and Fribourg. In 1967, he sent a group to Fr.
Theodosius’s society, sponsored by Cardinal Siri,
who followed courses at the Lateran University.
The following year, he sent some seminarians to
Fribourg University, all the while staying at the
Holy Ghost Fathers’ priory. That was the situation
until June 1968 when he resigned as Superior
General.

I. At the Crossroad

Archbishop Lefebvre found himself at a
crossroads, at the retiring age of 63. However,
the growing disintegration of the priesthood
led him to form a plan to transmit the precious
inheritance he had received at Rome from the
hands of Frs. Le Floch, Voegtli, Frey, and Le
Rohellec. When still an archbishop in Africa, he
had a premonition of this work:
“…The dream was to transmit, before the
progressive degradation of the priestly ideal,
in all of its doctrinal purity and in all of its
missionary charity, the Catholic Priesthood

Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop Adam of Sion

of Our Lord Jesus Christ, just as He conferred
it on His apostles, just as the Roman Church
always transmitted it until the middle of the 20th
century.
“How should I carry out that which appeared
then to me as the sole solution to revive the
Church and Christianity? It was still a dream, but
there appeared to me already the need, not only
to confer the authentic priesthood, to teach not
only the sana doctrina approved by the Church,
but also to transmit the profound and unchanging
spirit of the Catholic priesthood and of the
Christian spirit essentially bound to the great
prayer of Our Lord which His Sacrifice on the
Cross expresses eternally.”
Ever since his return to Europe, one desire
had gripped him more and more: to found an
international seminary according to these
principles. While supporting his seminarians of
Rome and those of Fribourg, several candidates
knocked at his door. By that time, end of 1968,
he was virtually out of options for them. Fr.
Theodosius said he did not want to take more
than 10 seminarians, whom he meant to train
as religious. In Fribourg, his seminarians were
no longer wanted at the Holy Ghost priory. The
Archbishop still said: “I had this conviction which
nothing could shake, that to save and continue
the Church, one had to train priests: holy
priests and true priests.” By this overwhelming
thought, he looked for houses in Fribourg whose
university was certainly attractive and where the
seminarians could really get good training.

II. The Foundation at Fribourg
Fr. Aulagnier witnessed the decisive scene:
“There we were on Grand’rue in the library
of our host, Professor Bernard Faÿ, an upstairs
room in a grand house overlooking the Sarine.
There were Fr. Marie-Dominique, O.P., Dom
Bernard Kaul, Abbot of Hauterive, and JeanFrançois Braillard, who was the father of a young
family and headed the Fribourg state education
department. We were amazed to see these
individuals exchanging reflections on the decline
of the priesthood.”
Archbishop Lefebvre recalled:
7

Theme SSPX 50th Anniversary
“They literally took me by the scruff of the
neck and said: ‘Something must be done for these
seminarians!’ It was useless my saying that I
was 65 and retired, or that it was foolish to begin
something that I could not continue if I should die
within the next few years.… They wouldn’t have
it. ‘Okay,’ I said to them, ‘I’ll go and see Bishop
Charrière. If he says yes, that will be a sign of
Providence.’
“His Excellency Bishop Charrière received me
warmly and was enthusiastic about my projects.
He willingly gave me permission to open this
‘orphanage’ for seminarians from all countries,
especially South America. This happened on
June 6, 1969, at 3 p.m. in the bishop’s residence at
Fribourg. The seminary was born! Now we had to
think about getting down to business.”
The “Saint Pius X Association for Priestly
Training” was formed on July 2. The founder
secured 12 rooms in the Foyer Don Bosco for
the school year 1969-70, financed by generous
benefactors. The only thing missing was someone
to act as rector of the seminary, but none came
forward whom he could trust. Thus, Providence
decided that he, Archbishop Lefebvre, and no
other, would be the rector of the seminary he was
founding. He would be completely involved in the
work.
On October 13, 1969, the “new boys” arrived at
106, Route de Marly, most of them in lay clothes.
Apart from Pierre Piqué and Paul Aulagnier—
both from Santa Chiara—there was the Swiss M.
Doyon, the Argentinean E. Eraso, and J. Antier, R.
Fillion, G. Monti, B. Pellaboeuf, and B. Tissier de
Mallerais, all of whom were French. Archbishop
Lefebvre himself welcomed them. Paul Aulagnier
was already there, keeping his thoughts to
himself: “I felt disappointed and worried. The
nine students assembled for this first academic
year did not seem reliable to me. It was far
from the ideal that I had dreamed of: a breeding
ground for young, Traditional Catholic Levites,
spiritually pumped up and having no qualms.”
Then, the founder fell ill at Dijon at the end of
the year, and was hospitalized in Fribourg, and
unbeknownst to the community, he asked for
extreme unction. The priest reassured him: “Now
is not your time, your Grace!” At last, test results
reassured the patient and his spiritual sons:
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he was suffering from strongyles contracted
in Africa and lodged in his liver. He wrote to a
friend: “Providence has put me to the test with
this illness for the last two and a half months.
Doubtless, it is because suffering is essential to
the works of God.”
Having been recently tried by illness, he
was now beset by doubts: what was the use of
carrying on with troops tried and trimmed, and
without a reliable collaborator? However, thanks
to the Cité Catholique and The Knights of Our
Lady, seven solid recruits were acquired. With
his customary simplicity, he stated his worries
to the five remaining students: “I won’t conceal
from you the anxiety that I feel at the thought of
taking the decision to accept new seminarians
with all the risks that could pose to their future.
Will they be accepted in dioceses? Should we
form a priestly society? I am putting my whole
confidence in the holy providence of God.” He
was encouraged at this time by Fr. Jean-Yves
Cottard who was living at the French Seminary
in Rome but who wanted to come to Fribourg to
whom he replied: “No, wait: things are not going
very well.”
The loyal support of the Fribourg committee
certainly helped the Archbishop to persevere.
Professor Faÿ who came to give talks about
Freemasonry to the seminarians, District Judge
Albert Volanthen and Fr. Philippe encouraged
the project. Thus, the Archbishop set out once
again to find an independent property for the four
remaining Fribourg seminarians for the start
of the school year in 1970. A suitable house on
Route de la Vignettaz soon went up for auction,
and on June 26 while the Archbishop prayed in
the cathedral, the architect Antognini won the
bidding for him. However, the Archbishop had
found another house for the new students who
would arrive that year: Écône!

III. Écône
Archbishop Lefebvre was going to launch
a project that was dear to his heart: a year of
spiritual formation before beginning studies
for the priesthood. Well before Fribourg in fact,
Providence and Our Lady were preparing Écône

for him on this blessed plot of land in a corner of
Valais.
In the autumn of 1967, Fr. Pierre Epiney had
just accepted from his bishop the post of Riddes
parish priest that had been refused by four other
priests. He began by visiting his parish. He rang
the doorbell at Écône, owned by the Canons of
the Great St. Bernard, but there was no answer.
He went into the deserted courtyard: on the left
was the barn and on the right the kennels. In a
flash, he saw in his mind’s eye the courtyard of a
large seminary full of seminarians. Very quickly
he chased away the meaningless image and found
himself again in the deserted courtyard. Canon
Roserens who still maintained the property came
down to greet him: “Here, it’s all over, there’s
nothing left to do.” Was that certain?
Everything began on Holy Thursday, 1968.
Alphonse Pedroni, a daily Mass communicant
from Valais, heard during a conversation in a
cafe that the house of Écône was to be sold by

the Great St. Bernard Canons. He opened his
heart to Gratien Rausis: “There are several
buyers who have lots of money and one of them
is a Communist group who want to blow up the
chapel!”
“Alphonse,” Gratien replied, “if it’s only a
question of money, we have to do something.
But we cannot do that alone.” He suggested
that his brother Marcel join them, while Rausis
put forward the names of Roger Lovey and Guy
Genoud. On April 18, Roger Lovey wrote to the
Provost: “Because of Écône’s past, it means a
lot to us. We could say that it has a religious
vocation which we refuse to see abandoned
without greater scrutiny.”
On May 31, 1968, the feast of the Queenship
of Mary, contracts were exchanged by the five
friends and Canon Bernard Rausis. The Provost
of St. Bernard, Monsignor Angelin Lovey, had
said: “We will do you no favors.” How were they
to pay? They would borrow from the bank.

9

Theme SSPX 50th Anniversary
The manager sought information: “But have you
assets?”
“No,” replied Pedroni, “we don’t have any. You
only need give us the loan: it’s for a religious
work. You only have to lend us everything!”
Amazed, the bank manager gave them a loan
for the entire sum.
Almost a year passed from May 1968 to Holy
Week 1969 when Archbishop Lefebvre made
his first visit to Écône. “I didn’t really think it
was a good spot for a seminary since it was so
far away from any major town, but it was very
suitable for a novitiate.” On May 24, 1970 with
Paul Aulagnier he returned to Écône for another
visit and was welcomed with open arms by the
five friends and Fr. Epiney. At the end of the meal,
Alphonse Pedroni, who until then had remained
mysteriously silent, opened his mouth to speak
these words which proved to be prophetic: “Well,
Monseigneur, I tell you: they’ll talk about this
seminary of Écône throughout the world.”
The final decision to begin the renovations
needed before the house could lodge seminarians
was taken on June 24. The Archbishop promised
to pay them a substantial sum by way of rent. By
that time, he had secured the Bishop of Sion’s
approval for a preparatory year at Écône.

IV. The Priestly Society
of Saint Pius X
How could priests, who were trained to fight
for Christ the King, subsequently maintain the
doctrinal purity and missionary charity of their
calling if not by some rule of life? How could
they be protected against the growing liberal
corruption of the clergy if they returned to the
diocese? Implicitly, if not explicitly, the “dream
of Dakar” was in fact a plan for that society.
He shared his idea in October 1969 with his
seminarians:
“Let me offer you some considerations for the
future: [we could] form a society, not of religious
like Fr. Theodosius, but a society of seculars.
Should we be scattered throughout dioceses or
existing congregations? Or should we remain
together, at least living in small groups?”
The seminarians were quite uncomfortable
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with this proposal. Those who had been sent by
their bishops or even already incardinated in
their home dioceses considered that they were
destined for those dioceses. The new students
had no clear ideas on a topic that went beyond
their present concern of becoming good priests.
The Archbishop expected more of a response, if
not more enthusiasm. After a few days of doubt—
as we have related—he took heart again. On July
1, he went to Bishop Charrière’s residence in
Fribourg and gave him a draft of the statutes of
the Priestly Society: “I have been asked by some
young priests and seminarians to found a society
for secular priests. I have written these draft
statutes in accordance with Canon Law.”
“I see nothing to object to in such a useful and
timely initiative,” replied François Charrière.
“If you agree to the foundation, the year of
spirituality will take place in Écône; Bishop
Adam has already given his permission. During
this year, candidates can prepare to join the
Society—it is a novitiate by another name—
although the seminarians will not be obliged to
join. The Society will have its headquarters at
Fribourg on Rue de la Vignettaz.”
After another meeting on August 18, trying
again—as only he knew how—Marcel Lefebvre
wrote to his colleague again on October 13, 1970,
reminding him of their meetings and the statutes
under consideration. Finally, on November 7, still
awaiting a reply, Archbishop Lefebvre telephoned
the bishop’s residence; he was worried since he
knew that the auxiliary bishop, Pierre Mamie,
was opposed to the foundation. Nevertheless,
Bishop Charrière said eagerly: “Yes, Your
Grace, come over straightaway.” After a brief
conversation at the bishop’s residence, he said:
“There’s no point in waiting any longer.” There
was just time to go and say a prayer in the chapel
while the document was being prepared. Then
Bishop Charrière signed it. He was at the end
of his episcopal career. Three months later he
resigned. Archbishop Lefebvre had certainly
put a little pressure on the bishop. However, he
declared: “I’m absolutely delighted to see my wish
so quickly fulfilled!” The document ruled that:
“The International Priestly Society of Saint
Pius X is erected in our diocese as a ‘Pia Unio’
(pious union).…We approve and confirm the

Statutes, here joined, of the Society for a period
of six years ad experimentum, which will be
able to be renewed for a similar period by tacit
approval; after which, the Society can be erected
definitely in our diocese by the competent Roman
Congregation.…Done at Fribourg, in our palace,
November 1, 1970, on the Feast of All Saints,
François Charrière.”
The decree was deliberately predated by
six days. Returning to Rue de la Vignettaz,
Archbishop Lefebvre, who was obviously
delighted, showed the letter to the seminarians,
who passed it from one to another: they could not
resist re-reading it, looking at the signature and
checking the seal. Everything was in order. The
Archbishop later said: “Was it not providential?
That date of November 1, 1970, is to my mind an
event of great importance in our history: it was
the day that saw the official birth of the Society.
It was the Church which brought it into the world
that day. The Society is a work of the Church. For
me, I would have been horrified at the thought of
founding anything without the bishop’s approval.
It had to be of the Church.”
As for the seminary whose legal existence
was suggested by the statutes, in light of its
preparatory year in Valais, its house in Fribourg,
and the studies at the University, it could be
considered as an appropriate training center
needed by the institute even at its embryonic
stage of clerical pious union.

V. The Seminary of Saint
Pius X moved to Écône
Archbishop Lefebvre commented:
“From November 1970 I had to think about the
new school year in October 1971 and work out
where we would lodge those who had finished
the year of spirituality, which was to be at
Fribourg in principle. Meanwhile, the university
courses were no longer satisfactory; the students
were becoming agitated, and Fr. Philippe said:
‘One day soon you will have to give the courses
yourself.’
“Now, when I went to Écône, it was good to
see how the young men benefited from a true
and simple curriculum and from being in an

atmosphere of peace rather than dissent. They
were also out in the Valais countryside where the
people were still deeply religious. So, I thought to
myself: why not put the seminary here?
“Then I consulted with His Eminence Cardinal
Journet. He was categorical: ‘The university does
not suit the majority of seminarians and does
not encourage seminary discipline; if you have
the choice, you must not hesitate. Send only a
few students to the university to get degrees.’
Bishop Mamie understood what good could
come from an independent seminary but thought
that it would be difficult to set up.…Lastly, my
colleagues were unanimous: if it was going to
provide training that was sound and solid in all
respects, the seminary should be in Écône.”
The Diary of Écône notes on November 16 that
at the end of a novena to St. Joseph, and “after
a visit to the chapel,” the Archbishop decided
to build the seminary at Écône. Bishop Adam’s
permission was still needed… On December
26, 1970, Maître Lovey drove the Archbishop
to the bishop’s residence in Sion, and stayed in
the car while they went in. “Getting permission
was a little more difficult” than for the year of
spirituality,” said the Archbishop. At last, the
Bishop of Sion gave in: “The last time, you asked
me if you could use Écône for your pre-seminary,
I accepted; but when you asked permission for a
seminary, I objected that we already had three
in the diocese. Now, this year, my seminary is at
Fribourg and the Capuchins have closed theirs.
So, I no longer have any objection.”
Archbishop Lefebvre was satisfied with his
answer and got on with the work. Henceforth,
things went very quickly. On February 3, the
architect Ami Delaloye was commissioned. On
February 15, 1971, he came to present his plans
for the future St. Pius X wing, a first building
providing accommodation, and his quotation:
1,500,000 Swiss francs. The Archbishop listened,
saying nothing but thinking: “I need at least a
third of that to begin without getting into debt; I
don’t have it; I can’t go ahead.” Now, at that very
moment, a telephone call from Fribourg informed
him that a benefactor—Bishop Adrien Bressolles
had just credited his account with a large amount
of money. Providentially, it was just enough to get
the project started!
11

Theme SSPX 50th Anniversary

The
Archbishop,
the Society,
and Rome
By Bishop Bernard Fellay

Editor’s Note: The following recollections of Bishop Fellay were provided in response to a series of
questions. As such, the impromptu character of his replies have been retained throughout.

If we look through the history of the relations
between Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and the
Society of Saint Pius X on one hand, and the
Vatican on the other, we will be struck by the
fact that despite the various intensity of these
relations during time, and the various aspects
of it, Archbishop Lefebvre never changed his
fundamental desire toward Rome.

Rome is the Heart of the Church
Rome is the heart of the Church; we are
Roman Catholic, and so in the midst of the battle,
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Archbishop Lefebvre will repeat unceasingly that
we are attached with our whole heart to eternal
Rome. That unchanging Head of an unchanging
Church, the very Church founded by Our Lord
Jesus Christ Himself.
From this Church, we expect everything,
because from her, we have received all the
treasures of our Faith, and of sanctifying grace.
From this Church, at the first step of baptism,
we have said we desired Faith, because it gives
eternal life. From this Church and only her,
we know we can and must receive the words
which save, the discipline, commandments and
sacraments which bring us to Heaven. But when

the established authorities in the Church start
to depart from this path, we reject their pseudoteaching, because it leads to damnation. This is
not our judgment, but the infallible statement of
Holy Mother Church throughout the centuries.
“Nihil novi nisi quod traditum est.” Unless
one keeps this Faith whole and undefiled,
without doubt he shall perish. This attitude of
the Society’s founder is very well explained and
exposed in his declaration of November 24, 1974,
right after the canonical visitation of the two
visitors sent by Rome. So scandalous that they
caused the writing of the famous declaration:
“We hold firmly with all our heart and with
all our mind to Catholic Rome, guardian of the
Catholic Faith and of the traditions necessary to
the maintenance of this Faith, to eternal Rome,
mistress of wisdom and truth. We refuse on the
other hand, and have always refused, to follow
the Rome of Neo-Modernist and Neo-Protestant
tendencies, which became clearly manifest
during the Second Vatican Council, and after the
Council, in all the reforms which issued from it.”

The Stability of the
Archbishop’s Position
It is very important to understand well that
this distinction explains both the goal of the
Archbishop in his relations with Rome and also
the incredible stability of his position.
In fact, the double proposition of acceptance
and rejection does correspond to the tragic
reality we meet in the Church since Vatican II.
And this distinction helped preserve Archbishop
Lefebvre and the whole SSPX from two perils:
either the danger of quitting the “modernized”
Church or swallowing all its poison. The
sedevacantists have gone the first path, rejecting
all the popes from John XXIII to Francis.
The other position, that of the so-called
“conservatives” who are troubled by the novelties
that have appeared over the past 50 years, have
preferred to deny the evidence and minimize
the errors in the name of the infallibility of
the Church or of the pope. They proceed in the
wrongly applied spirit of St. Ignatius in his rule
about sentire cum ecclesia: when the Church

says “white,” even if it seems to them that it is
black, they say “white.”
So the goal of Archbishop Lefebvre in
maintaining relations with Rome was always
the expectation that the authorities would one
day come back to the unchanging teaching and
discipline of the Church. It was never to obtain
only canonical recognition, though he would
always consider this important, too—but less
than losing the Faith! “I do not want to contribute
to the destruction of the Church.”
The term conversion is appropriate to qualify
this expectation of Archbishop Lefebvre. The
certitude that the gates of Hell shall not prevail
moved him even contra spem in spem, because
the real head of the Catholic Church is and will
always remain Our Lord Jesus Christ. We possess
certitude of the truth of Our Lord’s words. And
so we have the certitude of a coming back to
“normal” one day, of the traditional Christian life
in the Church. This crisis will come to an end. We
just do not know when.

Rome’s Initial Attitude
It is very interesting to follow the first steps
of Archbishop Lefebvre which indicate also the
attitude of the Roman authorities. On the side of
Lefebvre, there is deference and respect. He will
follow all the rules of establishing a new priestly
fraternity.
On the side of Rome, especially, Cardinal John
Wright, Prefect of the Clergy at the time, we see
a lot of good consideration. This is also found
among the bishops who granted the Archbishop
permission to establish the first houses of the
Society, in Fribourg. Écône, and Albano, which is
close to Rome.
There is obviously still goodwill in the Church
toward the newly founded Society. Things go so
far that already in 1972, Rome starts the process
to grant to the Society the “pontifical right,” that
is make the SSPX no longer dependent on the
local bishops, but directly on Rome. However,
in 1974, probably due to the rapid development
of the Society, and certainly due to unfounded
accusations from certain French bishops,
Rome will initiate a canonical visitation. The
13

Theme SSPX 50th Anniversary

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Fr. Schmidberger and Fr. Lorans during the press conference before the consecration of bishops.

open controversy at the time was the Society’s
refusal to celebrate Pope Paul VI’s new Mass. At
least this is what the Archbishop was later told
following the canonical visit; he never received
the actual report.
This canonical visitation was the start of
many hard years for Archbishop Lefebvre. In
1975 came the unjust suppression of the Society
by Bishop Pierre Mamie of Fribourg. Then, like
a chain reaction, came the Archbishop’s unjust
suspension a divinis in 1976.
We may certainly qualify this period as
“aggressive” on the side of Rome. Pope Paul VI
expects the total destruction of the Society,
along with the transmission of all its goods and
properties to Rome—the dissolution of the whole
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work.
The audience in the autumn of 1976 with Paul
VI will not bring peace back.

Evolution of Rome’s Attitude
We may divide in two the main phases of
Rome’s attitude towards the Society. The first,
which lasted until the year 2000, was aggressive.
Rome rejected this work of divine Providence
and wanted its destruction. Then after 2000, a
new attitude, desiring to keep the Society alive,
but expecting acceptance of the novelties of the
Council and the New Mass.
The first phase, 1974-2000, is still beset by

variations. The first moment is simply a will to
destroy the Society’s opposition to the novelties
of the post-Vatican II era. Then, just before the
consecrations of 1988, there is a new approach
which is ready to allow the existence of some
aspects of Traditional life by allowing the SSPX
to live its own charisma. After the consecrations,
there is a desire to separate the Society from
the Church, with the excommunication of the
bishops, and, without an explicit declaration
of schism, a similar attitude towards all the
Society’s priests and the faithful who attended
our chapels.
The election of Pope John Paul II does not
bring much change, though some hope follows
the audience with the Holy Father in 1978. But
unfortunately, the pope left it to the Prefect of
the Congregation for the Faith, Cardinal Seper,
to deal with Archbishop Lefebvre. This will
initiate a sort of process, where he is accused
of attacking the Faith. It was the second time
(after 1975) that a kind of tribunal had been
established against Archbishop Lefebvre without
his knowledge. This time, he escaped the trap by
refusing to sign the document which would have
started the process.
Following some years of relative calm, we
see a new phase of discussions with Cardinal
Ratzinger as the head of the Congregation for
the Faith. But there will be no real conclusion
either. Then comes the announcement of the
meeting of all religions in Assisi in 1986, which
weighed heavily on the Archbishop’s decision
to perform the episcopal consecrations in 1988.
On June 29, 1987, the Archbishop announced
the consecrations publicly. After this, there
was a back and forth movement between Rome
and himself, which will result in an Apostolic
Visitation by Cardinal Cagnon, accompanied by
Monsignor Perl, in November 1987.
Once again, neither the Archbishop nor
the Society had access to the report from the
Visitation; we only know that it was mainly
praise for the work the SSPX had accomplished.
This will lead to a period of discussions in the
spring of 1988 to establish the conditions of
the recognition of the Society as a work of the
Church, including the possibility of one bishop.
On May 5, 1988, a protocol agreement is

even signed by Archbishop Lefebvre. But
on the following day, because of the great
distrust generated by the attitude of the Roman
interlocutors, which did not show benevolence,
the Archbishop requested something more: four
bishops instead of one and with a fixed date of
June 30, 1988 instead of leaving the matter “up in
the air.”
During this period, we see that the main
request from Rome remains the acceptance of
the Second Vatican Council and of the New Mass.
About Vatican II, there is some opening: on the
disputed points related to the Council, “only” a
positive attitude is requested. On the New Mass,
“only” acceptance of its validity is demanded.
We may notice at this moment already some
interesting points: Rome’s will to give a certain
special status to the Society and even a bishop
for the needs of the Society and its faithful, but at
what price?
After the consecrations followed the
excommunication of the bishops involved.
And with this act by Rome, it again hardens its
position toward the SSPX. For quite some years,
official relations between the Society and Rome
will be almost dead. Still a minimum connection
was kept, with some visits to certain cardinals
and also a desire for both sides to not cut ties
entirely. So, Rome will never declare officially
that the Society is in schism, for example.

The Second Phase of
Rome’s Attitude
The second phase starts in the year 2000 and
exists to this present day. We may say that things
go better for Tradition, albeit rather slowly. That
is to say, little by little, step by step, Tradition
finds more and more a place in the Church,
though it is still rejected by much of the hierarchy.
A serious opening in the relations between
Rome and the Society would only come after
the year 2000 Pilgrimage to Rome by the
Society, preceded by a letter to the bishops of
the Society by the newly-appointed Cardinal
Castrillon Hoyos, then-head of the Ecclesia Dei
Commission.
At the very end of 2000, Cardinal Castrillon
15

Hoyos would tell me that Pope John Paul II wants
to find a solution for the Society. But given the
harsh way which the Vatican treats the Fraternity
of St. Peter at the time, we said that we need
some proof of goodwill before trusting the Roman
authorities.
The situation sees some serious progress,
particularly under Pope Benedict XVI, who
explicitly says that finding a solution for the
Society is a priority of his pontificate. And so
we see him issue the motu proprio Summorum
Pontificum in 2007 and then, in 2009, rescind
the decree of excommunication from 1988. The
Society desired these two steps to be taken, and
they helped stabilize relations between the SSPX
and Rome.
After this, a serious and official round of
discussions on Vatican II and the following
reforms started to take place between
representatives of the SSPX and delegates of the
Congregation of the Faith. This lasted from 2009
until 2011.
In 2011 came the first clear proposal of giving
to the Society a canonical status of importance in
the Church, preferably a Personal Prelature, with
a bishop as its head. There is also a first opening
on legitimate questioning of certain points of
Vatican II. But fundamentally, the baseline
of these discussions remained the protocol
agreement given to the Archbishop in 1987.
In 2012 as well as in 2017, the requirements
from Rome remained the basic acceptance of the
Second Vatican Council and of the New Mass.
The wording may vary from one document to the
other, but it is essentially the same.
Still, at the same time there is also an opening
for more discussions. There is also an acceptance
of the good work done by the Society. Even Pope
Francis said to me, “You are Catholics” and much
more normal relations start to be established on
the practical level. We find public declarations
from Monsignor Pozzo who clearly removes the
accusation of schism. But the terminology “not in
full communion” shows that there is still work to
do towards the full reestablishment of Tradition
in the Church.

For more than a decade, also, due to the
fragmentation of our Mother, the Church, we are
facing contradicting statements about us from
the highest levels in the Vatican. From some
there is praise and from others condemnation.
This makes any concrete progress very difficult.
Because, who in Rome will have the last word?
The pope?
A letter from the prefect of the Congregation
of the Faith, Cardinal Mueller in May 2017, gives
the answer: If very interesting progress has been
accomplished on paper with regard to a canonical
structure, the major obstacle to canonical
recognition remains the request to accept Vatican
II and the legitimacy of the New Mass. It is as if
our objections to the novelties since the Council
tragically illustrated in recent developments such
as the Amazon Synod and the “synodal path”
in Germany, both of which destroy the Church,
have no importance. We are back at the start,
just like 20 years ago. But does not precisely the
strong opposition of Cardinal Mueller to those
recent events support the Society’s attitude and
position?

Concluding Thought
With this we understand more than ever
that the real solution to the present crisis will
not come through mere human and prudential
efforts. The key remains in God’s hands and,
keeping our eyes on Him, we reiterate our
determined will to be faithful to the Faith of our
Fathers, to all the treasures which have brought
the glory of the Church, and which we have
unworthily received.
We see our duty to transmit faithfully to the
next generations what has made saints and
brought salvation to the Church’s members
during all the centuries. Our Lord Jesus
Christ will save His Church, but He wants the
cooperation of His instruments in His Mystical
Body! He does not need us, but He wants us. As
well said by St. Joan of Arc: “Men shall fight and
God will give the victory.”

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre during the consecration of bishops
17

Theme SSPX 50th Anniversary

For the
Love of the
Church
Excerpt from the Life of Marcel Lefebvre

By Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais

To make a personal legacy, to single himself
out, to see himself preferred to the pope…these
are, according to his detractors, the desires and
modus operandi of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
What are these in reality? Let us go through the
stages of his life which were indeed varied and
at the same time were animated by very simple
considerations and impulsions.

Marcel Lefebvre’s First Desires
The desires of the young Marcel Lefebvre were
before all things, very simple, he thus finished his
high school studies at Tourcoing, in 1923. “It is
true that I was always drawn to the altar, to the
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, that I went to serve it
every day during the war, in 1915, at the risk of
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my health. I left the house before the enforced
curfew was lifted to be an acolyte for the dear Fr.
Desmarchelier, my professor and confessor.
But the priesthood seemed extremely elevated
to me; one had to be a saint to pursue it. I
required the insistent words of Fr. Alphonsus,
Trappist of the Abby of St. Sixtus in Belgium
to aid my decision: “You, you will be a priest!
You should become a priest!” And so, my father
sent me to Rome, against my will, to the French
seminary to study “the solid Roman doctrine, in
Latin, under the gaze of the pope (Pius XI) at the
Gregorian University.”
How did I become a missionary?
“Oh, it was because of my older brother, Fr.
Rene Lefebvre, who convinced me to follow
him to Gabon. He bombarded me with letters!
“What are you still doing in France? Second

vicar of Marais-de-Lomme. Look! See the bigger
picture! Hurry here where we have plenty of
catechumens, an army of catechists, and so few
priests!” But myself? I wanted to be a simple
little country priest with my little herd of sheep
to take care of—a bit like the holy Cure of Ars!
…But to go a bit further into virgin territory, or
to navigate across the desert…I didn’t feel that I
was destined for that.
But deep within myself I felt unsatisfied, even
though I was otherwise perfectly happy. “Mama,
I said to my mother, I will never be as happy as I
am here with my parish ministry.” But in Rome,
I received the principles which opened larger
perspectives; the dear Frs. Le Floch and Voegli
communicated to us a great desire for the reign of
Our Lord Jesus Christ.” The sacrifice of the priest
for the social reign of Jesus Christ the King.”
Thus, I said to myself, my life will be much
more useful in Africa, working to convert pagans
to the truth of Jesus Christ and His Church.” “In
Africa, I will give even more of myself.” It was
this conviction which made me into a missionary
and a member of the Congregation of the Holy
Ghost. And in December of 1931, I left from
Foucault at the port of Libreville, welcomed by
my new bishop, Bishop Tardy, who said to me:
“Ah, Fr. Lefebvre, I have just learned that you
have a doctorate in philosophy and a doctorate in
theology from the Gregorian University in Rome!
So, I am going to appoint you to be a professor in
my seminary!”
Oh, how I feared teaching more than anything
else! I wanted to have a direct apostolate. But I
needed to obey, obey. And for six years, with only
two priests, we taught all the courses of both the
minor and major seminary!

Did I Enjoy the Formation
of Young Africans?
Yes, indeed, by the grace of God! Who would
have figured that, all of my life, I would be
occupied with the formation of priests: in Gabon,
in the seminary, then in the bush where one
needed to discern vocations because there were
those who were very good, then in Mortain in
Normandy, where Bishop Le Hunsec, my superior

general called me in 1945 to direct the college of
philosophy of the Spiritans. There, I was really
at ease, in my place, with my African experience
and the good principles that I received at Santa
Chiara (the French seminary in Rome). And each
morning, after Mass, driving my father’s old
car (who died in a concentration camp in 1944),
I roamed through rural Normandy to collect
butter, cheese, meat, vegetables, flour, milk…to
feed those charged to me. Of course, the main
goal was to inculcate the youth with the solid
social doctrine of the Church. These youths who
were infused with the virus of liberalism and
Communism! You will remember the situation
during the years of 1945–1947! But because I
loved them, because I took care of their daily
bread, found them blankets for their beds and
glass panes to repair their windows broken by
the war, well, I believed that they appreciated me.
And I believe that I succeeded in passing along
good principles: not my principles, oh no, but the
principles of Our Lord and of the Church.
Likewise, in Dakar, I built a new seminary at
Sebikotane—an oasis of greenery in the middle
of the desert—and I gave my seminarians young
professors, the Frs. Morvan, Fourmand and
Bourdelet whom I appreciated very much and
sent to Rome in order that they could study and
obtain their university degrees. I often went to
visit my seminary to encourage my future priests
to acquire a genuine spiritual life…I hope that it
wasn’t all in vain!
Afterward came the Second Vatican Council—
the crisis of the priesthood. One said to the
seminarians: “Take this, it’s the key to the
seminary, you can leave in the evening and
experience the world…” Or even, “You know, one
day, you can get married; the Church will accept
married priests.” That is when many families
came to see me in Paris at Rue Lhomond, where
I was the Superior General of the Holy Ghost
Fathers: “Your Excellency,” they said, “Look at
our son. He is 18 years old and wants to become
a priest. But which seminary can we send him to?
It’s impossible! Do something for him!” This was
between 1962–1967.

19

Theme SSPX 50th Anniversary
The Signs of Providence
In the beginning, I said to myself: “I will send
them to Rome, to my old seminary where they
surely have kept the good traditions…but I
concluded that the professors and even the rector
I had appointed to this charge, Fr. Barq had
turned Modernist, disciples or fans of Teilhard de
Chardin, of Fr. Yves Congar, of Karl Rahner, etc.:
all of these evil-doers who wanted to reinterpret
the Gospel in a naturalistic and evolutionary
manner. At the end of six years, after several
unfruitful efforts here and there, I said to myself,
“Why not send them to Fribourg in Switzerland
to the university run by the Dominican Fathers
which is still good?”
I didn’t want to enroll them there myself

so I went to see the bishop of Fribourg,
Bishop Francois Charrière, a friend of mine
since Senegal: “Oh, he said to me, I wouldn’t
recommend my seminary, the doctrine is not
solid there!” Go and visit the inter-diocesan
seminary!” I went, therefore to “Salesianum”
where the rector warned me, “But Excellency,
there are no rules here! It isn’t a seminary; it is a
house of university students!” What could I do?
It is here that my friend Professor Bernard
Faÿ, a historian of Freemasonry, and condemned
to forced labor during the “Liberation” because
he had searched the premises of the Grand
Orient of France. He escaped from the Clinic of
Angers, France and from there to Switzerland
and was welcomed by Gonzague de Reynold, a

Fr. Marcel Lefebvre, missionary and teacher in the Seminary in Africa.

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remarkable Swiss writer. Bernard Faÿ brought
me to his home to stay with Fr. Marc Dominique
Philippe, Dominican professor at the University
of Fribourg, Dom Baron Karl, a Cistercian Father
from Hauterive, and Mr. Braillard, Head of the
department of education of the Fribourg Canton.
All these Fathers and men begged me: “Your
Excellency, do something for these seminarians
and for the two seminarians who accompanied
me who were expelled from the French Seminary
in Rome.” Fr. Phillippe on his knee, kissed my
ring with effusion: “Yes, at the university your
seminarians will support the professors who
remain good.” I responded to him afflicted there
upon the ground. “Alright, tomorrow I will return
to see Bishop Charrière, and if he encourages me,
that will be the providential sign that I should
dive, in my retirement age, into this adventure!”
Truly, I was sluggish about it; I dragged my
feet. Yet, at the same time, I felt imperiously and
interiorly pushed to transmit to the future priests
the heritage of Santa Chiara—the solid doctrine
joined to the sanctity of the priest, the source of
the sanctity of the priest.
The next day at the bishop’s residence:
“Wonderful, Archbishop Lefebvre again! Very
well, Your Excellency, find a house in Fribourg,
put up your priestly candidates there, and they
will follow the university classes!”
I found two apartments for rent at the house of
Don Bosco of the Salesians and I asked the father
N. to come and direct the household and that was
that!
Or was it? No. Providence had something
else in mind! At the last minute, this good
Father whom I was counting on was a false
friend: “Excellency,” he wrote to me, “I am not
coming.”… “Alright,” I responded, “Don’t come!”
Thus, I understood that I needed to involve
myself personally down to the very foundations,
and become the rector of the seminary, which I
discretely named, “International Gathering of St.
Pius X” and which Bishop Charrière approved
with all his heart. The only thing left for me to do
was to direct the rule of the seminary, inspired
by the direction of Fr. Le Floch and Canon Law,
and to receive the new candidates who arrived by
divine Providence October 13, 1969, feast of Our
Lady of Fatima, without me even realizing the

coincidence.
No, I never did anything by my own initiative; I
was pushed or pulled by events. It happened that
I found myself there at the right time to begin an
adventure—but that I didn’t dare imagine that it
would succeed!
Did I accomplish God’s will for me? I
was forced to believe that God blessed my
correspondence to His grace. We were going to
have a combat for the Faith in order to “transmit
the priesthood of Our Lord Jesus Christ in
its doctrinal purity and missionary charity.” I
had a glimpse of this task in a sort of dream
in Dakar around 1958; it is only because those
seminarians compelled me so that I would give
myself to this sort of “mission.” It could very well
be said that God prepared me for this task for a
very long time. Blessed be God for His ineffable
inspirations and for the immediate support from
the many benefactors that this work received,
and which even visibly (the benefactors as well)
were brought by Providence.
All in all, I never did anything other than
to follow Providence. And for this work, it
required the blessing of the Church herself. I
absolutely needed the permission and canonical
authorization of my diocesan bishop who was
Bishop Charrière. In summary, it was the just
reward which the Fribourg and Swiss faithful
made for my mission in Senegal! It is the charity
of God overflowing in the hearts of so many
faithful Catholics and so many young ardent
people who accomplished everything.
Did I save the Catholic priesthood, the Catholic
Mass, and the Catholic Faith? Certain people
attribute these wonderful things to me. But, you
see, I am for nothing in this.

Translated from the French by Associate Editor Miss Jane
Carver

21

This is why we are doing this ceremony. Far be it from me to set myself up as pope! I am
simply a bishop of the Catholic Church who is continuing to transmit Catholic doctrine.
I think, and this will certainly not be too far off, that you will be able to engrave on my
tombstone these words of St. Paul: “Tradidi quod et accepi—I have transmitted to you what
I have received,” nothing else. I am just the postman bringing you a letter. I did not write the
letter, the message, this Word of God. God Himself wrote it; Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself
gave it to us. As for us, we just handed it down, through these dear priests here present and
through all those who have chosen to resist this wave of apostasy in the Church, by keeping
the eternal Faith and giving it to the faithful. We are just carriers of this good news, of this
Gospel which Our Lord Jesus Christ gave to us, as well as of the means of sanctification: the
Holy Mass, the true Holy Mass, the true sacraments which truly give the spiritual life.
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Sermon on the occasion of the Episcopal Consecrations

Theme SSPX 50th Anniversary

Establishing
the First
District
By Fr. Patrick Groche

It was in 1976 that the first ordinations of the
seminarians who had completed all their seminary
studies at Écône took place. That year, Archbishop
Lefebvre established the District of France for
the Society. By that time, other seminarians had
been ordained before us because they had already
completed part of their seminary either in Rome or
elsewhere, and finished their studies in Fribourg,
Switzerland. This was the case for Frs. Aulagnier,
Tissier de Mallerais, Post and also the Frs. Bolduc
and Bernard Waltz, who are now deceased, and
others…
The academic year of 1975-1976 had been
draining for the Archbishop because Rome
demanded the official closure of his seminary and,
later on, the suspension a divinis was imposed
on him by Pope Paul VI on the occasion of the
priestly ordinations of June 29, 1976. This is when
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Archbishop Lefebvre made Fr. Paul Aulagnier
responsible for the foundation of the District of
France. He thus became the first superior of the
first district of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius
X. Just after my first Mass celebrated at Besançon
on Sunday, September 4 (which was the Sunday
following the famous Mass at Lille of Archbishop
Lefebvre), I became Fr. Aulagnier’s first District
Treasurer.

Organizing the District
Fr. Aulagnier organized the District of France
from the centrally located Le Pointet, a house
bought shortly before the ordinations of June
1976 by the Archbishop. This became our “first”
retreat house of the Exercises of St. Ignatius.

Fr. Aulagnier loved the countryside and enjoyed
watching the cows graze upon the green grass
of Le Pointet. He traveled all over France with
his tiny “204 Peugeot” car, with Br. Dominique,
his usual chauffeur. “Fr. Paul” as the Archbishop
called him, visited all of the French mission
chapels. At that time, they existed under the title
of Associations Law of 1905 [Editor’s note: The
law of the separation of Church and State], which
means that they were directed by laity who had
refused, in a truly Catholic manner, the Novus
Ordo Missae of Pope Paul VI.

after Vatican II. Catholic consciences of France
and elsewhere had been awakened, especially
since the ordinations of 1976, and the Mass of
Lille which had been largely commented on by the
secular media. The world had not foreseen such
publicity over the return to Catholic Tradition
advocated by Archbishop Lefebvre.
Thus, the first priests coming out of Écône
in 1976 were going to be assigned to various
priories: first and foremost, Suresnes, which
the Archbishop had bought in 1972 and had
turned into a bookstore and library, manned by
Fr. Cottard. Suresnes, a suburb of Paris, was
to become the District headquarters within a
year. Then, there was Lanvallay in Brittany and
the Abbey St. Michel in Brenne which was to be
used shortly as a retreat house. Two years later,
it was given to the SSPX Sisters, who had been
founded in Albano, Italy. The Archbishop had
bought Albano, with the canonical authorization
of the Cardinal of Albano. He wanted to make it
a formation house for the first three years of the
seminary since Écône was becoming too small
for all of the anticipated vocations. Above all, the
Archbishop wanted his seminarians to discover
Catholic Rome with its majestic basilicas and
churches dedicated to the countless emerging
martyrs of the Church. Archbishop Lefebvre
wanted priests steeped in Roman Catholicism as
he himself had been by his years as a seminarian
at the French seminary in Rome, Santa Chiara.
Later that year, Fr. Aulagnier came to join me
at Suresnes, which became the District House.
Farewell cows and calves of Le Pointet. Such was
the will of Archbishop Lefebvre, our founder, as
Paris was obviously more suited for the District
leadership.

Establishing Catholic Schools

Fr. Aulagnier took the opportunity to give
lectures on our holy Traditional Mass vs. the
Novus Ordo. These conferences were quite
popular, and turned into illustrated booklets,
were made available to people who had issues

With the ordinations of 1978, Providence
prepared our apostolate to the youth by
establishing truly Catholic schools. Near
Châteauroux, in Surins, the Traditional laity
founded the school of St. Michel with a director
who loved education and Catholic education
but, alas, he was not the best financial manager.
Consequently, when the school was on the
25

Theme SSPX 50th Anniversary
brink of bankruptcy, the laity responsible for the
administration of the school turned to Fr. Paul
Aulagnier. Their solution was that the Society
take over the direction of this boarding school,
but, along with it, they would take on the heavy
debt! “Fr. Paul” went to see the Archbishop in
Écône who listened attentively to him. After
having told him that it was possible to resume
the administration of this school, he reminded
Fr. Paul that this is not our [the Society’s] first
goal, since the Society has as its primary goal the
formation of priests. Fr. Paul’s main argument
was that this school would no doubt be a nursery
for vocations and future priests. Yes, but beware,
said the Archbishop: “Failure is not allowed”—
which sent a shiver down the spine of the priest
in the face of the great responsibility of such an
undertaking. And it is therefore Fr. Laurençon,
ordained in Écône, June 1978, who was appointed
by the Archbishop to be the director of our first
school under the patronage of St. Michael.
Then, we acquired a second school, “Morning
Star,” near Strasbourg, founded by Fr. Rohmer and
his religious sister with their parents’ inheritance.
Fr. Jacques Laguérie, also ordained in 1978,
became the director of this new school.

The District Grows
The first issue of the magazine Fideliter came
out of Le Pointet press. It was highly prized by
“Fr. Paul” who got it off the press thanks to the
tireless efforts of Miss Orsier. The issue was
brought to Écône and presented to Archbishop
Lefebvre by Fr. Aulagnier. The Archbishop opened
it, turned the pages, looked at it from every angle,
scrutinized it and ended by encouraging “Fr. Paul”
with a grin saying: “I hope it is not a still-born!”
Today, we have exceeded 250 issues and Fideliter
is thriving. To be honest, the Archbishop had
funny ways of encouraging us…
Sr. Anne-Marie Simoulin, the Foundress and
Superior of the Dominicans of Fanjeaux, wrote
to the Archbishop regarding her foundation of
boarding girls which admitted day boys at that
time. The boys, however, had become too old for
her young sisters to teach them. She had written
in February 1981 asking him to take over the
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boys, but the beginning of the school year was in
September. I won’t tell you the troubles that this
caused us. But, with the help of Providence and
St. Joseph, we were able to find and buy a large
wine estate a few miles from Fanjeaux, find an
architect, obtain the permit to build a school with
boarding facilities, and also find a construction
company that could finish the project in the short
months that separated us from the beginning of
the academic year. So, finally, with St. Joseph’s
funds, St. Joseph des Carmes near Carcassonne
was started in October.
Thus, in the first years, owing to the
inexhaustive mission work of Fr. Aulagnier,
we opened the priories of Lanvallay-Dinan,
Marseilles, Unieux-St. Etienne, Bordeaux, Lyons,
Dijon, Nantes, Croix-Lille. Along with them, we
furnished them with primary schools held by our
SSPX Sisters or our Oblate sisters. In Belgium
bordering France, Sr. Marie Christiane, sister
of Archbishop Lefebvre opened the first Carmel
at Quievrain. I was involved also in helping her
renovate the convent.
There is still much to be told about the
beginning of the first SSPX District. Catholic
France in the 1970’s enjoyed the support of priests
and faithful who had held on strongly to Tradition
until then. These aging Catholic priests and
faithful friends counted on Archbishop Lefebvre
and his work. Setting up this important District
brought many joys and encouraging graces, along
with its load of sorrows. After all, is this not the
norm of things as the Imitation says: “The law of
life on this earth is the Cross of Our Lord Jesus
Christ.”
I wish to conclude with the beautiful
encouragement from the Foundress of the Dakar
Carmel. I visited her in August 1984, while I
was preparing the future foundation in Gabon,
Africa. Speaking of Archbishop Lefebvre who had
brought them to Senegal, she said to me with all
her religious simplicity, “Oh you know, everything
that Archbishop Lefebvre undertakes, succeeds.”
He himself responded to this compliment: “This
happened thanks to the prayers of the Carmelites.”

This piece was translated from the French original by
Associate Editor Miss Jane Carver.

Visit the dedicated website on

marcellefebvre.info

Theme SSPX 50th Anniversary

Archbishop
Lefebvre and
Shakespeare
By Andrew J. Clarendon

In Ideas Have Consequences, Richard
Weaver writes: “Evidently it is the poet’s unique
command of language which gives him his ability
to see the potencies in circumstances. He is the
greatest teacher of cause and effect in human
affairs; …poets are the quickest to apprehend
necessary truth.” Dealing in “the evocative power
of words…[and] the mighty power of symbolism,”
it is not surprising that a poet can teach profound
truths even centuries after his death; at the
highest level, poetic lessons have perennial value.
Such is the power of inspiration that poets even
seem to prophesize: one thinks of Virgil’s famous
Fourth Eclogue, often called the Messianic
because it reads like a foretelling of the coming of
Christ. In English, the greatest poet is, of course,
Shakespeare, whose plays, while presenting a
certain plot with certain characters, nevertheless
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express universal themes. The lessons conveyed
can therefore be applied to other situations and
can be useful in understanding the cause and
effect in human affairs that Weaver identifies
above. For this year’s celebration of the 50th
anniversary of the founding of the Society
of Saint Pius X, reviewing some themes in
Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear and his comedy
As You Like It is a poetic, connatural way to
further appreciate Archbishop Lefebvre’s stand
for tradition and orthodoxy.

The Bard’s Greatest Work
Generally regarded as his greatest work,
Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear involves a
crisis of authority; the play is a study of how the

King Lear Casting Out His Daughter Cordelia, Richard Earlom (London 1743–1822 London)

mistaken decisions of the one in power can have
disastrous consequences. All tragedies involve
an error made by the tragic hero, a misstep that
leads to profound suffering for the hero, those
closest to him, and society at large. In Lear, this
mistake is made in the very first scene: the king
decides to abdicate by dividing his kingdom
among his three daughters based on how well
they flatter him. When the youngest daughter,
Cordelia—whose name means “ideal heart”—
refuses to participate in this charade, Lear
angrily disowns her. As the scene progresses,
only one member of the court dares to stand up
to the king: the Earl of Kent. His words provide
a template for loyal resistance to authority gone
mad, a resistance in the spirit of Archbishop
Lefebvre. Already angry with Cordelia’s refusal

to flatter him, when Kent speaks in her defense,
Lear immediately threatens to punish anyone
who stands in the way of his rash actions,
saying “The bow is bent and drawn. Make from
the shaft.” Kent’s answer is the essence of true
loyalty: “Be Kent unmannerly / When Lear is mad.
What wouldst thou do, old man? /…in thy best
consideration check / This hideous rashness.”
When the king is so fixated on his will as to
threaten Kent’s life, the noble earl affirms his true
loyalty: “My life I never held but as a pawn / To
wage against thine enemies, nor fear to lose it,
/ Thy safety being motive.” In the face of losing
everything, Kent demonstrates that the only way
to really help Lear is to point out his mistake,
to urge him to change course before anything
irreparable is done. As Lear rages, Kent stands
29

Theme SSPX 50th Anniversary
for the true good: “Kill thy physician, and the
fee bestow / Upon the foul disease…/ Or whilst
I can vent clamor from my throat / I’ll tell thee
thou dost evil.” The result is that Kent is banished
on pain of death; it is only after a long period of
suffering that Lear comes to realize that the earl,
who he thought to be a traitor, is the most loyal
subject in the realm. What is more, while Lear
rejects Kent, the loyal subject does not reject his
king. Disguising himself, he rejoins Lear later in
the play to do what he can to help his sovereign.
In a famous exchange, Kent says to Lear that
“you have that in your countenance which I
would fain call master…Authority.” Kent is one
of the greatest symbols of loyalty in literature
precisely because he resists the mistaken policies
of his master while still recognizing him as the
authority. The parallels to Archbishop Lefebvre
and the traditional movement are obvious to
anyone who recognizes the crisis: while still
affirming the pope’s authority, the archbishop did
not hesitate to resist the madness of discarding
the Church’s traditional teachings even when
most of the rest of the hierarchy was silent, even
when it meant a sort of banishment.

The Image of Exiled Tradition
An image of exiled tradition itself is found
in the comedic analogue to King Lear, As You
Like It. Set in the Forest of Arden in France—“a
thinly veiled reference to Ardennes, the region
of northern France that was the center for
English [Catholic] exiles,” as Clare Asquith
puts it in Shadowplay, her excellent work on
Shakespeare’s hidden Catholicism—the plot
involves the exiled Duke Senior, whose younger
brother Duke Frederick has usurped the crown.
While Duke Frederick holds the court, young
men flock to Duke Senior in the forest, a band
of merry men like Robin Hood’s. Duke Senior’s
opening speech, while recognizing his plight,
nevertheless praises the hand of Providence:
“Sweet are the uses of adversity /…And this our
life, exempt from public haunt, / Finds tongues
in trees, books in the running brooks, / Sermons
in stones, and good in everything.” Such do
traditional Catholics feel. While “they have the
30

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buildings, we have the Faith”; our exile has the
sweetness to it that St. Paul mentioned to the
Romans: “And we know that to them that love
God, all things work together unto good.” In
addition, the conclusion of Shakespeare’s comedy
includes the hoped for ending: just as the new
order under Duke Frederick comes to the forest
to destroy Duke Senior and the old traditions
once and for all, the tyrant meets “with an old
religious man, / [And] after some question with
him, [is] converted / Both from his enterprise
and from the world.” As “men of great worth”
continue to “resort to this forest” of traditional
Catholicism, may there be a similar conversion of
those in authority.
Fifty years into the heroic stand for tradition,
the fight continues. The traditional Catholic
movement is clearly one involving the youth: it is
traditional and orthodox communities that have
the vocations and families with children while
the modern experiment is literally dying out. The
next generation is poised to either receive and
preserve what has been passed down or to be
swept into the modernist current. Now, therefore,
is the time to be reminded of why the pioneers
of the traditional movement did what they did,
resisting even Peter to the face. Shakespeare
indicates that the end of crises involve suffering
and conversion; with the current crisis in the
Church still raging, these are central themes of
the beginning of the next 50 years of the SSPX.

216 pp. Softcover. Photographs – STK# 8744 – $15.95

The Last Mass of Padre Pio
The startling truths uncovered by this
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the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

By Alessandro Gnocchi and Mario Palmaro

“Later, as an aged Capuchin friar, the
mere thought of the liturgical reform,
which would take effect in 1969, was
sufficient to raise in him a holy horror.
Throughout his life the holy friar had
been obedient even unto martyrdom,
but at this time the only request he
dared to put forth to the authorities of
the Church was to be exempted from
the novelties of the impending liturgical
reform.”

On September 23, 1968 after having borne the stigmata for exactly 50 years, the saintly Padre Pio
died. This holy mystic spent his life as a living imitation of Christ and is the only priest in history
to bear the stigmata. During his life, in spite of the physical pain he endured, Padre Pio continued
to say his daily Mass. But part of his suffering was unknown. Padre Pio wrote a petition appealing
directly to Pope Paul VI so as to obtain permission, from the highest ecclesiastical authority on
earth, to never be required to say the Novus Ordo Missae. The existence of this petition was kept
secret from the public…until now.
For the first time published in English, read the startling testimony and eyewitness accounts of
close friends and spiritual sons of Padre Pio as they reveal his thoughts on the sanctity of the
Mass, the changes occurring in the Church during his lifetime, and the chilling effects they would
have on the future.
Look behind the cloister wall and discover a side of Padre Pio you’ve never seen before.

Visit www.angeluspress.org — 1-800-966-7337
Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music.

Around 10,000 faithful came to Fatima for
the pilgrimage organized by the SSPX on
August 19 and 20, 2017 for the centenary
of the apparitions of Our Lady. Various
pilgrimages and tours were organized,
culminating in prayer at the feet of Our
Lady, and a consecration of Russia by the
three bishops of the SSPX.

Theme SSPX 50th Anniversary

Why Is
the SSPX
Necessary?
By Benjamin Bielinski

As history looks back on the accomplishments
of the Archbishop, many are quick to judge. His
decision to start a priestly society, which began
to take form in the early 1960s, is often criticized
as egotistical, unnecessary, and disobedient.
But this couldn’t be further from the truth. His
priestly society was founded with the support
and approval of his local ordinary and the
later episcopal ordinations, though questioned
at the time, are now recognized as legitimate
and free of any negative juridical effect as
made clear by Benedict XVI through Cardinal
Giovanni Battista Re in the decree “Remitting
the Excommunication latae sententiae of the
bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X.” While this
decree lifted the excommunications but imposed
no additional changes, belief, or action on the
part of the Society, some still question the actions
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of the Archbishop. For even though Archbishop
Lefebvre’s actions were just and right the more
frequently asked question is why?

Motivations of the Archbishop
Why did he choose to act as he did at that
specific time? Anyone who has read the works
of the Archbishop will quickly understand
that he did what he did to preserve the sacred
priesthood and all that this holy office touches.
Few realize that his actions were not the result
of his own desires, but rather in response to the
many requests he received from seminarians
who were unable to find a traditional seminary
that remained true to the teachings of Holy
Mother Church. The 1960s were the culmination

The seminarians and professors at the beginning of the academic year in Écône, October 1971.

of changes that had been in motion for a long
time and these changes attempted to alter what it
meant to be a priest. In hindsight, we can now say
these changes have resulted in the single most
devastating reduction in the number of priests
worldwide since the institution of the priesthood
by Christ Himself. But if priests are so important,
the seminaries that train them are equally so.

Priestly Seminaries
in the 1960s
It may be hard for some of us to accurately
imagine a young man seeking to live out his
priestly vocation in the 1960s as tradition was
still visible in most Churches and cities. The rot
that has eroded doctrine in the minds of so many
today had not yet completely spread to the world
at large but it bloomed in the houses of priestly
formation. Sadly, the French seminary of the
Congregation of Holy Ghost Fathers in Rome
was no exception to this blight and by the 1960s
it appears to be all but complete. The rector of
the French seminary in Rome recalls a rebuke
of Archbishop Lefebvre which took place in the
spring of 1962.

“He took me to task for having told the bishops
who were staying at the seminary that I was
determined to train students to work for them
in their dioceses, according to their directives
and in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council.
He reminded me that the Holy Ghost Fathers,
not the French bishops, had founded and were
responsible for the French seminary.”
This was not an isolated incident and in fact
mirrored what was rapidly taking place around
the world as ecclesiastical leaders fell to the
allure of modernism already prevalent in society.
The Gregorian University in Rome founded by St.
Ignatius of Loyola in 1551 quickly altered its ageold requirement of teaching its courses in Latin.
While many accepted the changes, a few voiced
their concern:
“If the courses are no longer taught in Latin,
the seminarians will not be able to understand
their breviaries or the Church Fathers. They
will no longer be able to read the commentators
of St. Thomas, and the liturgy would not be
able to remain in Latin. It would be a terrible
impoverishment for the priests, who would be cut
off definitely from the Church’s inheritance.”
Despite protests like this, the changes still
took place and their implementation was rapid,
35

Theme SSPX 50th Anniversary
incisive, and radical, but Providence had other
plans.

Providential Timing
The timing was providential to begin this
work as the Holy Ghost Fathers in 1968 were in
the process of bringing their constitutions into
conformity with the Second Vatican Council,
during which they immediately requested that the
Archbishop take an extended leave of absence.
This was done as a result of the opposition he
had already voiced against the Council and,
consequently, he tendered his resignation. It
is interesting to note that if the Holy Ghost
Fathers hadn’t rejected the Archbishop due to his
adherence to the unchanging Catholic doctrine,
he would not have been able to devote his later
years to the creation and growth of a new Society
whose sole purpose was to preserve that same
doctrine. Also, if the liberal seminary rectors
and professors allowed traditional seminarians
to be ordained, there would have never been a
reason for Society of Saint Pius X to exist, as
those same seminarians would never have sought
out the Archbishop. Both the Archbishop and
seminarians found a new home on November
1, 1970 when the Bishop of Lausanne, Geneva,
and Fribourg approved and confirmed the
constitutions and proceeds to the canonical
foundation of the International Priestly Society of
Saint Pius X in his diocese. This is the context for
the creation of the Society. Both seminarians and
bishop were rejected along with the traditional
teachings of the Church. The needs of the
seminarians and the blessing and approval of the
local ordinary made it clear to the archbishop
what he needed to do.

Testimony of Seminarians
over the Years
As seminaries around the world continued to
worsen, the little Society began to see its first
growth. One seminarian recalls the early years
and his own impression of the Archbishop at that
time.
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“I joined the seminary during the hot summer
of 1976, just when the Archbishop had been
suspended by Pope Paul VI and had given his
polemical sermon of Lille in late July. It was clear
there was a war between two opposing positions,
and that the Archbishop, for all his combative
statements and attacks against the progressives,
made total sense, whereas his detractors were
simply snarling at his position and failing to
refute his arguments against the new Mass, the
new Catechism, etc. It was clear that the rug
was being pulled out from under the Church and
many of the younger priests were leaving their
sacred duties to go back into the world—sorry
times indeed.”
The sentiments echoed in this eyewitness
account illustrates how a tiny organization was
successful precisely because it was dedicated
to the preservation of the Catholic priesthood
in its entirety without compromise. A recently
ordained priest of the Society of Saint Pius X had
this to say when asked this question.
“Why did you choose to join the Society of
Saint Pius X?”:
“A couple years after I entered the seminary,

I was asked that same question by a couple of
diocesan seminarians who approached me at a
Beethoven concert. They figured I was too young
to be a priest and was wondering how I was
wearing a cassock when they weren’t allowed
to. They asked me almost immediately, ‘Why the
SSPX?’ I answered, ‘Look, I can go into questions
of doctrine and liturgy if you want, but quite
frankly I entered the SSPX seminary because
I want truth. Full and entire. The truths of the
Faith, the truths of the priesthood, without any
mixing or doubt, and to the best of my judgment
the only place I can get that is in the Society.’
They simply nodded and said, ‘Makes sense.’ ”
“And why did the Archbishop found the
Society of Saint Pius X?”
His reply is crystal clear:
“The Archbishop founded the SSPX for the
continuation and preservation of the Catholic
priesthood and everything that pertains to it.
This answer is significant because I am often
asked why the Society still exists, as it does,
since we can say the old Mass now without
restriction. What people need to understand is
that it’s a much deeper problem that is far from
being resolved.”

The Importance of
Priestly Vocations
There are many things that can be said
about the Archbishop and his actions but his
intentions are clear and the results of his efforts
are undeniable. He worked tirelessly to pass
on what he had received and to preserve the
eternal Catholic priesthood. He did this clearly
because so much is contingent on the existence
of priests. They are the lifeblood of the Church
and should young men cease to pursue their
God-given vocations, or be unable to fulfill them,
we, the faithful, would be cut off from every
sacramental resource meant to aid us on our path
to Heaven—to say nothing of the worship due to
God, which the alter Christus alone is capable of
offering. The priest is a prism through which the
grace of God is refracted into every corner of our
lives. He is there at our birth to welcome us into
the Church as we join the ranks of the Church

Militant and he is there at our death as we join
the ranks of the Church Suffering, the Church
Triumphant, or the damned. It is abundantly
obvious that the existence of priests is vital to
our survival as Catholics and the continuity of
Holy Mother Church.

What the Society of Saint
Pius X Means to Catholics
Very few of us lived in a country where the
priests were rounded up and the church doors
were locked. But the fruits of Vatican II have been
much the same as any socialist takeover. While
it wasn’t done in the name of Socialism but that
of Aggiornamento, a very real consequence of
Vatican II is that fewer and fewer people have
access to a priest, sacraments, and the Mass. Last
Sunday, we could have gone to our Church and
found it locked. No confession, no holy water,
no real presence in the tabernacle, and no Mass.
What we have is a privilege and the privilege we
now enjoy is a testimony to how the fidelity of one
archbishop can change the course of history and
affect the salvation of countless souls. This year
is the 50th anniversary of the Society of Saint
Pius X, what else can be said but, “God bless
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.” His undaunted
courage lives on in the members of the Society he
founded as its priestly members continue to carry
the torch of Catholicism to the four corners of the
globe.

37

Spirituality

St. John’s Use
of Words
By Pater Inutilis

St. John would live to be the last witness of
the Word made flesh who dwelt amongst us. His
inspired writings would close that revelation
which we call public and constitutes the object
of Catholic Faith (Lamentabili #21). Recorded
history had lost sight of him since St. Paul came
to Jerusalem to explain “his gospel” before the
apostles “James and Cephas and John, who
seemed to be pillars” (Gal. 2:9). Then, concerning
the disciple whom Jesus loved, silence, for
nearly half of a century. “As for St. John, during
the lives of Peter and Paul, tradition leaves him
in complete oblivion and makes no mention of
him until the closing years of the first Christian
century; but, as if to make up for this neglect,
it displays him then in a role of incomparable
majesty, dominating the end of the apostolic age,
by his writings, and by the unanimous respect he
38

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January - February 2020

is invested withal” (St. John and the Close of the
Apostolic Age, Abbé Fouard).

The Foretelling of Our Lord
Our Lord had foretold of him, as well as for
his brother James, “You shall indeed drink of
the chalice that I drink of: and with the baptism
wherewith I am baptized, you shall be baptized”
(Mk. 10:39). No manner or time was foretold
them, but martyrdom would befall. First of all the
apostles, St. James the Greater by means of the
sword under Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:l f.). Now,
over half a century later, with the persecution
of Domitian, had the time come for the second
of “the sons of thunder?” (Mk 3:17). History
tells us, after all, of his being hauled to Rome

to be done away with by having been cast into
boiling oil; but to no avail. And so there he is,
“…in the island, which is called Patmos, for the
word of God and for the testimony of Jesus…”
(Apoc. 1:9), an exile. And there it is that Our Lord
will come to him in a vision (Apoc. 1:10 f.), with
the injunction to write what he sees in a book
(ibid.). This would be the Apocalypse, the first,
chronologically, of St. John’s writings.
Visions divinely given can indeed be of
an external object, or imprinted directly on
the imagination; or received directly by the
intellect—ideas needing human speech and
imagery to be conveyed to others: perhaps an
impossible task [“I know a man…caught up to
the third Heaven,…caught up into paradise, and
heard secret words, which it is not granted to
man to utter” (II Cor. 12:2 f.)]. St. John’s vision
in chapter one, for example, of the Apocalypse
was probably of the first or second kind; but
others in this book were intellectual, not easy
to communicate, needing (divinely inspired)
imagery so to do. That would have been the case,
for example, of what is related in chapter four:
“After these things I looked, and behold a door
was opened in Heaven, and the first voice which
I heard, as it were, of a trumpet speaking with
me, said: Come up hither, and I will show thee the
things which must be done hereafter…”; and the
rest of the chapter will paint for us a picture of
Heaven. How do we picture Heaven? Immensity
by oceans, beauty by myriad colors, triumph
by thrones and crowns, majesty by prostration.
Numbers have their own signification, whether
it be the “seven” or the “four and twenty” or the
threefold (“Holy, holy, holy”). It is remarkable that
when St. John wants to describe spiritual truth
he chooses not the language of human wisdom,
though he had spent many a decade now in the
Hellenistic world, but the language of his fathers,
notably the images made known by the prophets
of the Old Testament while remaining very free in
using their imagery.

apart from their numerical signification. “Ten”
and “twelve” and multiples thereof represent
“wholeness.” That is so ever since God gave
Moses the “ten words” (Dt. 4:13; 10:4), i.e., all
the Law in 10 commandments, and chose the 12
sons of Jacob to be the patriarchs of His people,
“the twelve tribes of Israel” (Gen. 49:28). These
numbers may have their numerical signification,
or their symbolic value, or both at the same time.
Ignoring this, the Jehovah’s Witnesses of today
think only 144,000 will go to Heaven properly
so called (Apoc. 14:1), as the Millenarists of old
thought Christ would reign on earth with His
saints for 1,000 years after His second coming
and before the end of the world; whereas, as St.
Augustine responded, if this does not refer to
Heaven itself, then it refers to the whole Christian
era, for “All power is given to me in Heaven and
in earth…and behold I am with you all days even
to the consummation of the world”(Mt. 28:18 &
20). “It is the last hour” (I Jn. 2:18). Even more
than 10 or 12, “7” is the number of “sacred

The Meaning of Numbers
Numbers in the Old Testament, and very
much so for St. John, have a meaning quite
39

Spirituality
wholeness”—and that ever since God rested on
the seventh day after His work of creation (Gen.
2:2).
Here are but two instances of this: the
sevenfold Spirit would descend upon the Christ
(Is. 11:2) Who then left us 7 sacraments whereby
we might receive the same Spirit. Those who do
not understand that it may also be used only in a
symbolic sense will, after having pardoned their
brother not 7 times, but 70 times 7 times (Mt.
18:22), judge themselves exempt from pardoning
him any further. Woe to him if he offends a 491st
time! “Seven” is omnipresent in the Apocalypse,
a book that shows us the completion of God’s
work in time. What of “666”? So many offers here!
There are those who point out that letters in
Hebrew or Greek may have a numerical value; so
what names in these languages give us this total?
Nero is one, Diocletian another. Here’s one I like
(with all thanks to the Seventh Day Adventists):
on the Pope’s tiara is written VICARIUS FILII
DEI. Now, those Latin letters which stand for a
number in this title add up to…666. And so, the
pope is the Antichrist! I think rather that, until
particular events make it clear in their own time,
we can stay with the general understanding: 6 is a
number of “imperfection” falling short of 7; 3 is a
divine number (of the Trinity): here taken by that
mimic of God that is Satan, so it does stand for
“the man of sin…whose coming is according to
the working of Satan” (II Th. 2:3-10).
The author of the fourth Gospel is the same
as that of the Apocalypse, with his penchant
towards symbolism, but less so for numbers now.
Even so, he is careful, for instance, to note the
first seven days of Our Lord’s manifestation (Jn.
1:15, 29, 35, 43 & 2:1), and it would be typical of
him to see some signification in the fact that it
was at the seventh hour that the fever left the
son of a certain ruler, or that there were seven
disciples with Jesus when He confides the whole
flock to Peter (Jn. 4:52 & 21:2). But there are other
symbols Our Lord Himself uses for which John
will have a predilection, as “light” (and so “night”
and “day,” “seeing” and “blind,” and “darkness”
too) and “water”; or those of John, as “Word”
for the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Then
again, there are those things human said also
of the Godhead and rich in meaning, as “truth”
40

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and “life”; we should not forget “Being” [“Before
Abraham was, I am” (Jn. 8:58)] and “Charity” [for
“God is charity” (I Jn. 4, 8 & 16)].

How God Speaks of Himself
With this language, we have God speaking
about Himself in our own tongue [“No man hath
seen God at any time: the only begotten Son, who
is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared
Him” (Jn. 1:18)]. Human language uses the same
term in quite different, but somehow related,
senses. “To see,” for example, can be said of the
eye or of the mind. Then again, of the mind left to
its natural understanding, or enlightened by faith,
or even by glory in the Beatific Vision. These are
all very different things: but we understand that
they all indicate some perception of an object.
What, or how, remains very different. Divested
of any imperfection proper to the creature, and
understood “infinitely,” these tell us something
of God Himself. St. John will use such a term
as “see” in all these senses [of the eyes, e.g., Jn.
1:29; of the natural mind 4:19; but enlightened by
faith—8:56; or glory—17:24; and of God—5:19].
Two points could be made: firstly, that we
name things with which we are familiar and
then apply them in a different way to describe
things unfamiliar. And so to God too. But, in
the nature of things, perfections are said firstly
of God, and then in a derived and participated
sense of creatures. He is the first source of all.
Secondly, even when used in one sense, the
others are suggested. This was very much St.
John’s understanding—and so how he is to
be understood. For example, when he writes:
“And after the morsel, Satan entered into him.
And Jesus said to him: That which thou dost,
do quickly… He therefore having received the
morsel, went out immediately. And it was night”
(Jn. 13, 27 & 30). We know the paschal meal had
to be eaten after sunset and that it was night.
Why mention such a banal detail, if not that it
suggests also Judas’s state of soul? His heart was
black, we might say. St. John will see the First
Cause behind and through all, and all as related
to that same First Cause (The Holy Ghost’s gift of
“knowledge” will have the same purpose).

288 pp. Softcover. Illustrated – STK# 8755 – $16.95.

Crib to Cross
Meditations on the Life of Christ
For Beginners of All Ages

NEW
“Meditation is a hard word. It generally
implies the power of following our trains
of reasoning, a power not ordinarily
developed in early years. But the
young can look and observe; they can
watch a person’s actions and follow a
simple narrative of his life, especially
if truthfully and vividly set before their
eyes”…“Where the heart is pure, and the
imagination unsullied, the quick wit of
childhood, raised and helped by grace,
is easily interested in such a Person and
life as that of Jesus.”—From the Preface

Crib to Cross is a collection of beautiful meditations written over a hundred years ago with the young
Catholic in mind. It has now become an excellent introductory guide to the world of meditation for
beginners of all ages.
Catholics who wish to start having a deeper spiritual life can find no better way to begin their journey
than with this excellent work. It is profound yet concise and simple for all to follow. At every age and in
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Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music.

Spirituality

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass:

The
Offertory
Part One

By Fr. Christopher Danel

“The Offertory, Consecration, and Communion are the principal parts of Holy Mass: they are
intimately connected with one another, but are not of equal significance. In the Oblation the Sacrifice
is prepared, at the Consecration it is really accomplished, and during the Communion it is entirely
concluded and finished.”—Monsignor Nicholas Gihr

Introduction
In this article we examine the Offertory,
presenting the work of Monsignor Nicholas Gihr in
his fundamental liturgical commentary The Holy
Sacrifice of the Mass: Dogmatically, Liturgically,
and Ascetically Explained. Monsignor Gihr was
a priest of Freiburg in Breisgau whose work of
liturgical research took place during the time
frame spanning the pontificates of Popes Pius IX to
Pius XI, including that of Pope St. Pius X. The early
years of his work were contemporaneous with the
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last years in the work of Dom Prosper Guéranger.
(The English translation of his study appeared
in 1902; the original is: Gihr, Nikolaus. Messopfer
dogmatisch, liturgisch und aszetisch erklärt.
Herder: Freiburg im Breisgau, 1877.)

What is Offered, and Who
The words and the rite of the oblation before
the Consecration relate to a twofold object
namely, to the elements of bread and wine, and

also to Christ’s Body and Blood. In the first place,
the oblation (oblatio) relates to the Eucharistic
elements: the bread and wine are withdrawn from
common use, consecrated to God and previously
sanctified, that they may be in a manner prepared
and made fit for their unspeakably exalted destiny.
We give up all claim to these earthly gifts and
offer them to the Most High, with the intention and
desire that He would change them in the course of
the Sacrifice into the most holy Body and Blood of
Christ. Accordingly, this portion of the Mass rite
includes manifold petitions to the Most High, that
He graciously accept and bless or consecrate the
bread and wine offered.
Yet the Offertory has not exclusively for its
object the mere elements of bread and wine, but
also the real object of the sacrifice, the true and
only sacrifice of the New Law, that is, the Body
and Blood of Christ, which by Consecration
take the place of the former substances of bread
and wine, and thus become present on the altar.
The Church, therefore, does not wait until the
change of substance has taken place to offer
to the divine Majesty the divine Victim; no, she
already now offers the real Victim to the divine
Majesty, regarding, as it were, the approaching
Consecration of the sacrificial elements as if
already passed. From the liturgical prayers of
the Offertory, therefore, we may by no means
conclude that the offering of the elements of
bread and wine is a real sacrifice or constitutes
a part of the Eucharistic sacrifice. Only Jesus
Christ, present on our altars under both species
as symbols of His death, is the perpetual
sacrifice of the Catholic Church, our real and true
sacrifice.

The Offertorium
The Offertory is introduced by the kissing of
the altar and the mutual salutation: Dominus
vobiscum, Et cum Spiritu tuo. By these words
priest and people reciprocally express the desire
that the Lord would assist them by His grace. The
nearer the moment of the sacrifice approaches,
the more urgently do we require assistance from
above. The Oremus, which the priest then says,
relates not merely to the Offertory chant, but also

to the whole series of prayers that are said during
the Offertory. All present are thereby exhorted
to unite with the celebrant to pray and make the
offering in silent reverence.
After this the priest recites an Antiphon, which
in the Missal is called Offertorium. The antiphon,
originally with Psalm chant, exists because from
Apostolic times until about the 11th century, it
accompanied a procession of offerings at the
Offertory. Remains of these are the offerings are
still seen in the offering of a lighted candle to
the bishop when receiving Holy Orders, as well
as the presentation of two large lighted candles,
of two loaves and two small casks of wine at the
Consecration of a bishop and at the Benediction
of an abbot.
The Offertorium (antiphon) at present is a
shorter or longer verse, generally taken from the
Psalms, sometimes from the other books of Holy
Scripture, and only a few are composed by the
Church herself. As to its contents, it constantly
changes during the course of the ecclesiastical
year, and gives expression to the dominant
thought of the celebration of the day or Mass, and
has, therefore, precisely the same significance
and purpose as have the foregoing Introit and
Gradual chants.

The Sacrificial Elements
In anticipation of considering the rites and
prayers of the Offertory, we will consider the
Eucharistic species in themselves and their
preparation, that is, the remote preparation for
the Offertory. Wheaten bread (panis triticeus)
and wine of grapes (vinum de vite) are the
two elements which are necessary for the
accomplishment of the Eucharistic Sacrifice;
hence they are frequently called the matter of
the Holy Sacrifice. This does not say that bread
and wine are offered in the same way that the
Body and Blood of Christ in their real sense
are offered. As on the Cross, so on the altar
Jesus Christ alone is our Victim. Our Lord and
Savior, at the first celebration of the Eucharistic
Sacrifice, consecrated bread and wine and
prescribed the use of these elements for the
accomplishment of the unbloody sacrifice in
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Spirituality
His Church for all future time. There are certainly
some reasons which show the suitableness of
these sacrificial elements.
Ears of wheat and bunches of grapes represent
nature in her entirety, which is in a manner
offered to God in the oblations. The offering
of bread and wine then symbolizes also the

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donation of all created things as required of man.
In the bread and wine, man offers himself and
all that he is. It may then be inferred that the
separate species of bread and wine are suited
to represent the separation of the Blood from
the Body of Christ, the painful death of Christ,
Christ’s bloody sacrifice on the Cross.

Valid and Licit Matter
The Church requires that the matter used
for the Consecration be not only valid, but,
moreover, that it be permissible (licit) and as far
as possible perfect. The bread destined for the
sacrificial action must have been made of pure

wheaten flour that has been mixed with natural
water and baked in the fire; and that the bread be
pure, whole and fresh. The sacrificial wine of the
vine must have been pressed from ripe grapes,
fully fermented, not soured, nor settled, nor
artificially composed; as to the color and taste, it
may be red or white, strong or light, naturally

45

Spirituality
sweet or tart. With regard to the color, it is to be
remarked that, although red wine symbolizes
more perfectly than the white the Blood of Christ,
still white wine is to be preferred, because in its
use at the altar cleanliness can more easily be
observed. Another prescription respecting the
sacrificial elements is that the bread is required
to be unleavened and the wine to be mixed with a
little water.

Unleavened Bread
It is a strict ordinance of the Church for the
priests of the Latin rite to use unleavened bread
for the Holy Sacrifice, while for the united Greeks
it is as strictly enjoined, according to an old
custom, to consecrate only leavened bread. There
are more numerous and better reasons for the
usage prevalent in the Latin Church; hence, the
rite of the latter is to be preferred. These reasons
are principally the following:
The first is the example of Christ at the
institution of the Eucharist. It was the Pasch, so
it is generally admitted that Christ consecrated
unleavened bread. Although the words of the
Lord to His apostles and their successors
commanding them to do the same as He had done
at the Last Supper may not have been a formal
command to consecrate unleavened bread, still it
is evident that in so grave and sacred a matter the
example of Christ should not easily be departed
from.
The second is that, in Sacred Scripture, leaven
is usually employed in an evil sense. According
to the counsel of the apostle (I Cor. 5:7-8) we
must purge out the old leaven of sin and passion,
of wickedness and wantonness, that we may
be “a new paste, as we are unleavened” and be
enabled, when thus sanctified, to partake of the
immaculate Flesh of the Eucharistic Victim.
Unleavened bread is therefore a symbol of purity.
Unleavened bread is also different in appearance
and taste from the daily bread that we eat; hence
it is suitable by its appearance to indicate that
under the Eucharistic veil no ordinary bread, but
the true and living bread of Heaven is concealed.

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Wine and Water
To the sacrificial wine a small quantity of
natural water must be added, according to
apostolic ordinance and the strict discipline
of the Church. As this co-mmingling is a holy
ceremony, it must take place at the altar before
the Oblation and be made in the chalice itself.
Even a drop fulfills the purpose. This mixture
is so important and, therefore, so strictly
prescribed, that it would never be allowed for a
priest to begin the Holy Sacrifice, if he foresaw
that no water could be procured. Profoundly
significant are the reasons that favor the fitness
of this ecclesiastical ordinance and practice:
The first is once again the example of the
Savior. That the Lord at the institution of the
Eucharist consecrated wine mixed with water
is beyond a doubt. And in favor of this is the
circumstance that the addition of water to the
wine at the Paschal meal was a permanent
and universally practiced custom. The ancient
liturgies and holy Fathers are unanimous in
asserting that the Savior mingled the Eucharistic
chalice with water. Thus from the time of the
apostles the Church has everywhere and at all
times faithfully followed after the example of
her divine Master, and has ever consecrated
only wine mixed with water. She regarded it,
as St. Cyprian writes in his letter to Caecilius,
as proper that at the mixing and offering of the
chalice of the Lord, she should observe the true
tradition thereof, in order that at His glorious
and triumphant return He may find us adhering
strictly to that whereunto He had exhorted us,
observing what He had taught and doing what He
had done.
The second is that by these two elements, wine
and water, the blood and water which flowed on
the Cross from the wound in the side of Christ
may be represented. The piercing and opening of
the Heart of Jesus, with the stream of blood and
water issuing therefrom, is a wonderful event and
at the same time one full of mystical meaning.
The third is that the co-mmingling of wine and
water in the chalice refers also to that intimate,
mystical relationship existing between Christ
and His Church. The drops of water which have
been poured into the chalice no longer exist

of themselves, but they are diffused in and
incorporated into the wine, partaking of its
qualities. Similar is the union of the faithful with
Christ: by virtue of this union a change takes
place in them and they are made partakers of the
divine nature.
Finally, our rite is calculated to symbolize,
moreover, that mystery by which the divine and
human natures are united together in one person,
namely, the Incarnation of the Eternal Word. This
mystery is the root and source of all and of every
supernatural relation of man with God in time
and eternity.

Conclusion
Denis the Carthusian (†1471) wrote, “Think
of Him to whom you make your offering, that
is, God the Father, Omnipotent and Eternal;
the contemplation of His goodness, love, mercy,
munificence, and beneficence should make
the soul ascend with vehement love, and the
consideration of His majesty and equity should
fill the soul with reverential fear and humility.”

Their Reverent Preparation
To the matter of the sacrifice, already before
its oblation, are due the most scrupulous care
and the greatest reverence, as is evident from
their more remote preparation. Let us recall
the epoch of the Middle Ages, so full of faith.
Then it was that devout princes and princesses
esteemed it high honor to be allowed to prepare
and to provide the bread and wine for the Holy
Sacrifice. In religious houses the preparation
of the sacrificial bread was even accompanied
with solemnity and with a kind of divine service.
Thus was it prepared in the world-renowned
Benedictine Abbey of Cluny. Grain after grain
was selected, carefully washed, and carried
in a special sack to the mill by one of the most
exemplary monks. There he first washed the two
mill-stones, covered them from top to bottom
with cloths, robed himself in white, and then,
with veiled face so that his eyes alone were
uncovered, he began to grind the wheat. With
similar care the sieve was then washed and
the flour sifted. To prepare the bread from the
flour was the duty of the highest official of the
monastic church; two monks and a recently
admitted brother shared the holy labor with
him. Being well-washed and clothed in white
garments, they baked the hosts in a blessed
vessel. This edifying ceremony illustrates that
it is very proper that persons consecrated to
God prepare with all devotedness and reverence
the bread for the Holy Sacrifice, regarding this
preparation as a work of love and of conscience.
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Spirituality

A Bishop for
All Seasons
By Fr. Dominique Bourmaud

“In this Feast of All Saints, we contemplate those saints who teach us to remain in Tradition, to do
that very thing they did to become saints. We are repeating the same rites, the same gestures; we recite
the same prayers. We believe in the same perennial catechism which they believed in, and that is what
made them get to Heaven”—Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, November 1, 1980
This sermon is hardly going to raise an eyebrow. Yet, this was pronounced by a man who had been
ostracized as tearing the Church’s unity, and received the epithet of “rebel,” “disobedient” to the pope,
and “another Luther” leading souls into schism and error.

The Iron Bishop
When Archbishop Lefebvre and his close
friends realized that things were becoming
heated at the Vatican II Council, he urged on
to keep flying the flag of Tradition against the
odds in the face of a powerful Modernist faction
leading the Church astray. Some of the good
bishops, like Bishop Adam of Sion (where Écône
is located) were so disgusted at the turn of events
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that they refused to return to the next conciliar
session. When later, the new Mass was being
implemented, 6,000 Spanish priests begged the
pope for the privilege of keeping the Mass of
all times and were promptly silenced under the
magic word “Obey!” Nothing was heard from
them anymore. Few were those who resisted and
kept business as usual regarding the Mass and
catechism and preaching which they had always

performed. Many priests and bishops lamented
the wind of revolution and its deleterious
effects, but most were too tired, too weak, or too
frightened by their local bishops or superiors to
oppose the new trends.
Not so with the Archbishop and his friends
of the first hour. In the years of the Vatican II
Council (1962-1965), he met Bishop de Castro
Mayer, who would be present alongside him in
1988 for the consecrations of the four Society of
Saint Pius X bishops, and other colleagues. They
set up a small group of active bishops, pompously
called the Coetus Internationalis Patrum, who
endeavored to slow down the Modernist train
which was going full speed by the time of the
second session. He also was instrumental in
getting the Ottaviani Intervention which gave a
critical analysis of the Novus Ordo Missae and
urged Pope Paul VI to abstain from implementing
it, but to no avail. At the age of retirement, he was
prompted by seminarians to guide them towards
healthy universities, which ultimately led him to
start his own seminary and priestly society.
It might be interesting to see through the man
and pierce the secret of his resilience in the face
of opposition. Many people have argued that
“Lefebvre was a proud man and a rebel,” “hungry
for publicity,” “a personal enemy of Pope Paul
VI.” However, this caricature of the man does
not stand scrutiny and whoever has ever met
the Archbishop in ordinary settings can testify
that he was the most affable and effaced person,
welcoming, paternal, eager to listen, and in no
way an exuberant zealot ready to contradict an
opponent. Some of the early friends did not have
his gentlemanly manners and were much more
abrupt in their words and actions towards the
legitimate authorities. They might have reacted
firstly and fiercely, but the Archbishop, knowing
the authoritative weight which he carried in
conservative circles, moved more slowly and
cautiously.
This prince of the Church who, in his early
years, had wished to be a brother and felt
unworthy of the grace of the priesthood, had
spent his life in the service of the Church, filled
with an immense love of the spirit of Rome—
Romanitá—under whose auspices he spent his
seminary years at the French seminary of Santa

Chiara. He devoted much of his life to black
Africa as a Holy Ghost missionary, whether
at the seminary preparing priests, in the bush
evangelizing souls and building missions, or
in broad travels as the Apostolic Delegate and
counselor of Pius XII in African matters. His life
hardly complies with the profile of a renegade
and rebel. It rather reflects one whose whole
life was to carry to the ultimate the yoke of
the religious vows, first of all, obedience to his
superiors.
True, some of those who knew him as a
missionary in Africa and, later on, Apostolic
delegate in Africa, do mention that he was
stubborn, yet amenably so. Perhaps this was
his way of applying two important aspects of
the Church of whom it was said that she was
intransigent because she believed, and tolerant
because she loved. And this seems to apply to the
Archbishop. When it was a matter of principles,
he was unbending under whatever conditions as
the staunch Doctor of theology that he was. But,
in matters which were not dealing with the faith
or morals, he was humane and ready to forgive
and forget. And one never had the impression that
he was pulling his weight around his confreres
or subordinates. He was not only affable, he
was discreet and effaced, always giving his
interlocutors the chance to express their views
before making known his decision.
Another aspect of his personality is that
he had his entries into the Roman Curia with
trusted friends. For he had been broken into all
the intricacies of the Roman diplomacy, which
was a useful tool in the hands of one who would
be the de facto Defender of Tradition. We saw
how, through perseverance and his knowledge
of the men, he was able to obtain the green light
from Bishop Charrière of Fribourg and Bishop
Adam of Sion for his foundations of Fribourg and
Écône. We saw how eager he was to get support
from authoritative friends in Rome as well as at
the Fribourg university. He would seek advice
from Bishop de Castro Mayer on the delicate
question of attendance at the New Mass in case
of necessity. So many various actions which
indicate a consummate prudence on his part
before making a difficult decision.

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Spirituality
Neither Heretic nor Schismatic
The prelate of Écône was profoundly a
man of the Church, who suffered from the
unjust suppression of the Society and from
the censorships and condemnations to which
he was subjected: “I have to admit that these
persecutions have been harsh, severe, and
continuous, not only from those in Rome, but
also from all the bishops who have adhered to
the Council, who have adhered to the novelties
and who consequently can no longer tolerate
Tradition to be continued in their churches.”
Earlier on in 1974, as he set up his
international seminary in Fribourg, and later in
Écône, he soon faced pressure and rejection. The
French episcopate called it “a wildcat seminary,”
and pressured Roman authorities under Paul
VI and Cardinal Villot, Secretary of State, to
suppress this seminary which was becoming
successful, and was casting umbrage over their
progressive agenda and empty seminaries. Then
came the accusation of schism and attack on
the pope, then the official suppression of the
Society of Saint Pius X in May 1975, the year of
Reconciliation, and the suspension a divinis the
following year.
Yet, what is remarkable is that, although he
felt betrayed, the Archbishop never turned bitter
against the hierarchy. He had anticipated the
difficulties, when he took his stand for the Mass
of all times and the serious seminary formation.
He was going counter to what everyone else had
been doing ever since the Council. They would
never pardon him his overt opposition to Vatican
II nor his loyalty to Tradition, with a capital “T.”
And so, while weathering the storm, he always
had his suitcase ready to go to Rome, to appeal in
favor of all the conservative priests and lay folks,
whose voice he was at the Curia. He did not need
to use a polished or sophisticated language. He
simply brought out the latest facts and betrayals
of the progressist faction, along with the all
too obvious loss of faith and vocations. And, by
contrast, he plainly presented the good fruits of
those who preserve the discipline, the catechism
and the Mass of all times. As the gentleman he
was, he kept always the serene and respectful
tone he was wont to use before his superiors,
knowing full well that, if the problems came from
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the Roman authorities, Rome alone could solve
the latest Church crisis, and he, a poor retired
Archbishop, did not have the solution. In these
ongoing skirmishes and disputes, he never forgot
that his Society was a branch of the Church, a
part of a whole.

A Paradoxical Bishop
He was also a magnanimous and inventive
soul, prompt to propose solutions so long as it
was for the good of Tradition and favored the
return of Rome to the treasure Providence willed
to entrust to her. In 1978, he begged John Paul
II to say but a word, a single word, as Successor
of Peter, as Pastor of the universal Church, to
the bishops of the entire world: “Let them be; We
authorize the free exercise of what century-old
Tradition has used for the sanctification of souls.”
What difficulty would such an attitude present?
None. The bishops would be astounded to recover
within a few years’ time a surge of devotion and
sanctification that they thought lost forever. He
sought to obtain a form of exemption along the
lines either of a prelature or of an ordinariate.
As early as April 1979, in a letter to John Paul
II, he wrote: “Would it not be possible to grant
us the status that already exists for the nullius
prelatures such as the Canons of St. Maurice in
Switzerland, who have a bishop at their head, or
the Mission of France, whose Superior is also a
bishop?”
In the face of the conciliar revolution,
Archbishop Lefebvre laid down a categorical
refusal to all that could represent a danger for
the Catholic Faith, the Catholic cult, and Catholic
life. He pursued through thick and thin the work
of restoration that Providence had entrusted
to him: founding seminaries, opening priories,
schools, supporting families and encouraging
many religious congregations. It would be hard
to say that he was not up to the task when he
was brought forward to the TV, the radio, and
the world media. He was simply the same man
of simple manner, never departing from his plain
way of expressing his message of fidelity to
Tradition, explaining how it seemed paradoxical
to be condemned for doing what all great

churchmen and saints had always done, and after
being blessed under Pius XII, being now treated
as a leper. Could we not think that it was his
profound prayer life, and his intimate conviction
of being a Catholic witness of the truth? Did not
this allow him to remain himself and keep in
composure while being confronted with the most
powerful Church authority and in the face of the
modern media?
Archbishop Lefebvre was no absent-minded
university teacher lost in the clouds. He was
never so much at ease as when drawing plans
and checking properties, engaging recruits and
meeting people. In this, he certainly gave the
full measure of his exceptional talents of wise
administrator. People who knew the mettle
of great men said that he had the caliber of
CEO of an international Company like Nestlé.
Organizing, foreseeing apostolic labor where
it was needed, judging his men and intricate
situations, he was the leader who trusted his
collaborators, but who expected also their
mutual trust and transparency. And as his little
foundation quickly spread worldwide, he had to
navigate through the countless administrative
difficulties. Yet he was never so happy as when he
returned to Écône surrounded by his cherished
priests and seminarians, the flower of his Society.

In the Wake of the Founder
The founder of Écône passed away on March
25, 1991, 28 years ago. Despite the prediction
that Tradition would quickly disappear, the
Society has pursued its activities and expanded
steadily and organically. Meanwhile, his disciples
have pulled up their sleeves and gone on with
the priestly business of teaching young and
old, especially in school settings, providing the
sacraments to the living and burying the dead—
nothing to glory about as such, but nothing
lasting is glamorous or glorious. But the disciples
were also going to be a sign of contradiction as
they were simply doing Church business as usual
in a revolutionary setting which, by then, had
gnawed at the heart of the Church.
No doubt, the various generations of priests
and Superior Generals lacked the aura of sanctity,

of wisdom and experience of the Archbishop…
how could they? But, all in all, their humble
speech as well as their foremost wish to work
for the benefit of the Church as a whole, was
seen by the rank and file as keeping the founder’s
goal. They too only wished “to enthrone again
Tradition as Queen in Rome,” to quote the third
Superior General, Bishop Bernard Fellay.
On the other hand, the world at large and
much of the main Church hierarchy saw with a
suspicious eye what was running counter to the
mainstream effort of going on with the business
of Vatican II’s aggiornamento. Clashes were
inevitable at that junction and this went on for
many decades. It seems as if our little Society
has known a respite from the Roman Pontiffs in
the last decade with the removal of the episcopal
excommunications and the legalized liberation of
the Mass of all times. Moreover, with the erratic
present Pontificate, many bishops, surreptitiously
no doubt, have become aware of the present
decomposition of the Church. Some are finally
looking deeper into the causes of all this, causes
which Archbishop Lefebvre had denounced ever
since the close of the Council: religious liberty,
ecumenism, and collegiality.
All in all, we are not going to relive the past:
the feeling of horror before traitors, the urgency
and impetus of the first bastions of Tradition in
the 60s and 70s will not be resurrected again. But
what we Traditionalists need to be aware of is of
the intensity of the evil within the Church walls.
We need to flee like the plague the pervading
indifference, cowardice before the repeated
attacks from all sides, the mutism of dogs turned
chameleons ready to placate their audience
rather than defend Christ’s reign and the Church’s
rights.

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The Deposit
of the Faith
By a Benedictine Monk

St. Benedict in the last sentence of the
Prologue of his Rule speaks of the gift of faith.
“In fact, in as much as we progress in the
religious life and in our faith, our heart is dilated
and we run in the way of the Commandments of
God filled with the ineffable sweetness of love.”
The most precious treasure in our life is the gift
of faith by which we possess true charity. Our
Lord says ‘For where your treasure is, there is thy
heart also.’ Our heart will grow in charity if we
conserve our faith in all of its purity.”
Fifty years of the work of the Archbishop,
founding the Society of Saint Pius X, has been
like an echo of the words of St. Benedict. He
handed on the deposit of faith to a generation of
Catholics seeking to survive in the midst of one
of the most terrible battles of the history of the
Church. His faith permitted him to run in the
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ways of God with great love. He chose to place on
his episcopal coat of arms St. John’s words “…
we have believed in charity.” This charity that
comes from faith gave him and the Society of
priests that he founded, the courage to stand up
and refute the terrible errors of Vatican II. In his
last years, the Archbishop chose to summarize
his life’s activity by writing on his tombstone:
“Tradidi quod et accepi”—“I have handed on
that which I also have received.” He received the
gift of faith from Our Lord through the apostolic
line of bishops and he maintained it in all of its
purity in order to hand it on to future generations,
helping us all maintain our souls in true charity.
In 1974 amidst the general confusion of the
post-conciliar reforms, the Archbishop made his
courageous statement of faith:
“We adhere with our whole heart, with our

whole soul to Catholic Rome, guardian of the
Catholic Faith and of the necessary traditions
to maintain this Faith, to the eternal Rome, the
mistress of wisdom and truth.
“We refuse however, and have always refused
to follow the Rome of neo-Modernist and neoProtestant tendencies, which manifested itself
clearly in the Second Vatican Council and after
the council in all of the reforms, which were a
result of it.
“All these reforms, in fact, have contributed
and still contribute to the demolition of the
Church, to the ruin of the priesthood, to the
annihilation of sacrifice and of the sacraments,
to the disappearing of the religious life, to a
naturalistic and Teilhardian teaching in the
universities, in the seminaries, in catechism, a
teaching brought forth from liberalism and from
Protestantism so many times condemned by the
solemn magisterium of the Church.
“No authority, not even the most elevated kind
found in the hierarchy, can oblige us to abandon
or diminish our Catholic Faith, so clearly
expressed and professed by the magisterium of
the Church during 19 centuries” (Archbishop
Marcel Lefebvre, Nov. 21, 1974).
These words of Archbishop Lefebvre were
certainly intended to defend the deposit
of the faith that he was handing onto his
seminarians and future priests of Écône. In
order to be attached to truth of the Eternal
Rome, we must be detached from errors of
the neo-Modernist Rome. He mentions only
the Teilhardian error in particular as if all the
others were somehow involved in this one. Fr.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit priest
and also a paleontologist who believed that the
universe must be subordinated to his theory of

evolution. He used, in a certain way, his prestige
as a scientist to confirm the supposed veracity
of his theories as a philosopher and theologian.
Protected by a shield of a false science, he
proposed a new faith “in the god of evolution”
to the Catholic Church. His erroneous system
of evolutionary change influenced many other
theologians of his time to apply the obligatory
theory of change to every aspect of the Church.
He essentially denied original sin and proclaimed
universal salvation for all mankind. One of his
more famous proclamations of this false faith
is found in the book entitled The Future of
Mankind. He speaks of the case of an atheist and
a Catholic making their way to eternity and how
both will obviously be saved:
“Take the two extremes confronting us at this
moment, the Marxist and the Christian, each a
convinced believer in his own doctrine, but each,
we must suppose, fundamentally inspired with
an equal faith in man. Is it not incontestable…
that despite all ideological differences, they will
eventually in some manner, come together on the
same summit? …Followed to their conclusion the
two paths must certainly end by coming together:
for in the nature of things, everything that is
faith must rise, and everything that rises must
converge” (T. de Chardin, Future of Mankind,
pp. 198-199).
Perhaps one of the greatest gifts that the
Archbishop has left to the Church is the Society
of Saint Pius X. This small group of Catholics
has continued to hand on the deposit of the
Faith to fellow Catholics for the past 50 years by
fighting vigorously against this new, false faith
of universal salvation and by thus preaching true
charity.

55

It is the blessed Virgin Agnes’ feast, for
today she was sanctified by shedding her
innocent blood, and gave to Heaven her
Heaven-claimed spirit.
She that was too young to be a bride was
old enough to be a martyr, and that too in
an age when men were faltering in faith,
and even hoary heads grew wearied and
denied our God.
Her parents trembled for their Agnes, and
doubly did they thus defend the treasure
of her purity; but her faith disdained
a silent hiding-place, and unlocked its
shelter-giving gate.
One would think it was a bride hurrying
with glad smiles to give some new
present to her Spouse; and so it was: she
was bearing to Him the dowry of her
martyrdom.
They would fain make her light a torch at
the altar of some vile deity they came to:
“The Virgins of Jesus,” said Agnes, “are
not wont to hold a torch like this.”
“Its fire would quench one’s faith; its flame
would put out my light. Strike, strike
me, and the stream of my blood shall
extinguish these fires.”
They strike her to the ground and as she
falls, she gathers her robes around her,
dreading, in the jealous purity of her soul,
the insulting gaze of some lewd eye.
Alive to purity even in the act of death,
she buries her face in her hands; and
kneeling on the ground, she falls as purity
would wish to fall.
Glory be to thee, O Lord! And glory to
Thine Only Begotten Son, together with
Thy Holy Spirit, for everlasting ages.
St. Ambrose

Book Review

Bl. Leonid Feodorov: First Exarch of the
Russian Catholic Church, Bridgebuilder
Between Rome and Moscow
Fr. Paul Mailleux, S.J.

“The Holy Church will be very reluctant to allow
a member of the Eastern Church to go over to
the Latin Rite.”—Pope St. Pius X, spoken during
a 1907 audience to the Russian Greek-Catholic
priest Fr. Alexis Zerchanninov.
In the year 2017, Loreto Publications published
a new edition of a book which sheds light upon
the history and martyrology of what is by far
the smallest of the Eastern Catholic Churches.
Although the Russian Greek Catholic Church
owes its very existence to Pope St. Pius X’s secret
efforts to promote Reunion among the Orthodox,
that it exists as a Church remains unknown even
to Traditional Catholics who pray for Russia’s
Conversion. To cure this unconscionable ignorance will be the purpose of this review.
According to Fr. Christopher Lawrence Zugger,
“Vladimir (Volodymyr), Prince of Kiev, converted
to Byzantine Christianity in 988 and subsequently introduced it as the State religion in Kiev,
which determined the permanent orientation of
Russia, Ukraine, and Belarussia toward Eastern
Christianity. In 988, Byzantine Christianity
was part of an unbroken and universal Catholic
Church, in which Rome and Byzantium remained
partners.”
Also, according to Fr. Zugger, “It is not possible
to precisely date the separation of the Churches
of Moscow, Kiev, and Rome. As was true in the
Middle East, intercommunion continued on a
local level for many years after the supposed
“split” of 1054, and even after 1204. The drift was
gradual, though anti-Latin Catholic feelings continued to deepen and intensify in the 14th century
as the Russian Church (Byzantine Rite), strengthened its alignment with Constantinople.
“As early as 1207, Pope Innocent III asked the
Kievan Government to unite with the Roman

58

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Church. Dominican friars who came to minister to
Latin Catholics in Kiev-Rus’ brought about enmity
because of their attempts to Latinize the local
Church and proclaim Roman supremacy. On the
other hand, Archbishop Petro Akerovych of Rus’
took part in the Council of Lyons in 1247. Bishop
candidates from the southwestern eparchies
often went to the local Latin Catholic Archbishop
to be ordained as bishops. The Latin Catholic
residents—both clergy and laity—of Novgorod
principality considered themselves and the Rus’
to be in full communion with each other until the
Council of Florence in 1439.
“In 1441, Metropolitan Isidore of Kiev attempted to reunite the two Churches at Moscow;
he was forced to flee for his life. From then on,

the Moscow Church was definitely non-Catholic,
splitting from the Church of Kiev in 1461. The
Mother Church of Kiev retained specifically
Catholic leadership from 1458 until 1481, when
Symon was installed as Metropolitan of Kiev and
Rus’ with the approbation of the Patriarch of
Constantinople.
“In 1588, Constantinople yielded to Russian
pressures and elevated Moscow to a Patriarchate,
which confirmed the city’s sense of being the
Third Rome. Moscow became the first new
Patriarchate since ancient times, surely a fulfillment of its destiny. By this time, the Schism
between Rus’ and Rome was complete. Indeed,
many on both sides considered residents on the
other side to be heretical.”
Today, 30 holy persons are venerated as
saints by both the Catholic and Russian Orthodox
Churches. From the time of Kievan Rus,’ their
number includes St. Olga and her grandson St.
Vladimir, who is viewed as a Slavic Arthur or
Charlemagne. Other Kievan saints include Boris
and Gleb and Antony and Theodosius, who founded the Monastery of the Caves in Kiev. Twentyone of these shared saints date from after the
Sack of Constantinople by Latin Rite Crusaders
in 1204. The most beloved of these is St. Sergei
of Radonezh, who founded the Monastery of the
Holy Trinity in the Moscow Province and who
urged the Russian people to fight for their independence from the Mongol Horde. The list ends,
of course, with the Russian Church’s rejection of
the Council of Florence.
On June 27, 2001, however, Leonid Feodorov,
who had been appointed in 1917 as Exarch, or
Administrator, of the Russian Greek Catholic
Church, became the first ethnic Russian whom
the Catholic Church has raised to the altar since
the 15th century. Although six other Soviet-era
martyrs and confessors of the Russian Greek
Catholic Church will soon be joining him, Bl.
Leonid’s nearly successful efforts to convince
Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow to reunite the
Russian Orthodox Church to the Holy See make
the Exarch a figure with special significance for
Traditional Catholics. This is his story.
Leonid Ivanovich Feodorov was born in St.
Petersburg, Russia, on November 4, 1879. While

his father’s side of the family had only recently
been liberated from serfdom, by the time of
Leonid’s birth his parents were solidly middle
class and able to send their son to the same
schools as the sons of the Russian nobility.
Although his widowed mother tried to instill in
him a devotion to the Russian Orthodox Church,
by the time Leonid was a teenager he had lost
his faith in Christianity. The reading of Hindu and
Buddhist sutras had caused him to become a nihilist who hoped for a career in the Tsarist officer
class. Instead, the example of Fr. Constantine
Smirnov, the Orthodox chaplain of Leonid’s high
school, brought him back to Christianity and
made him decide to study for the priesthood in
the Russian Orthodox Church.
Leonid’s experiences in the Russian Orthodox
Ecclesiastical Academy, which more resembled a
training college for civil servants than a Catholic
seminary, nearly caused him to lose his Faith
again. But then, the studying of the Councils and
Fathers of the Church convinced him of the truth
of Catholicism.
Leaving everything, he traveled to Rome in
1902 and was formally received into the Catholic
Church at the Church of the Gesu. Although he
had made a promise to the priest who received
him that he would switch to the Latin Rite, Leonid
soon realized that Pope St. Pius X did not wish
him to do so. With the latter’s permission, he
chose to seek ordination as a Catholic priest of
the Byzantine Rite. His ordination ultimately took
place in Constantinople and was conducted by
Metropolitan Mikhail Mirov of the Bulgarian Greek
Catholic Church on Sunday March 26, 1911.
Upon the outbreak of war in 1914, Fr. Leonid
returned to St. Petersburg only to have the Tsar’s
Governor General exile him to Siberia as a threat
to “State Security.” Obeying the Governor’s decree, Fr. Leonid traveled to Tobolsk and remained
there until riots in St. Petersburg forced the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in February 1917.
Meanwhile, the Provisional Government of the
Russian Empire had also released Metropolitan
Andrey Sheptytsky, the Head of the Ukrainian
Greek Catholic Church, from imprisonment in
an Orthodox monastery for immoral priests in
Suzdal. When the Metropolitan arrived in St.

59

Book Review
Petersburg, he decided to finally act upon the
powers secretly delegated to him 10 years earlier
by Pope St. Pius X.
In a Council of Byzantine Catholic priests and
laity, the Metropolitan approved statutes and
erected a Canonical Structure for what is now
called the Russian Greek Catholic Church. He
also appointed Fr. Leonid as the first Exarch, or
Administrator, of all Russian Catholics of the
Byzantine Rite. After the Council was concluded,
the Metropolitan returned to his See in the
Austro-Hungarian Crownland of Galicia.
At the same time, the bishops of the Russian
Orthodox Church, who had just been freed from
the stifling power the House of Romanov had
wielded over them, assembled and chose Bishop
Tikhon Bellavin as the first Patriarch of Moscow
since the 18th century.
For the first time since the 15th century,
Orthodox Christians and Catholics of both Rites
could openly practice their Faith without government interference or control. But it was not to
last.
In October 1917, soldiers and sailors acting
under the orders of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin attacked
the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg and placed
the ministers of the Provisional Government
under arrest. Persecution of all religions began
almost immediately.
Lenin viewed even the belief in a divinity to
be “unutterable vileness,” and under his rule
Christians of all denominations, practicing Jews,
Muslims, Buddhists, and even practitioners of
seances found themselves treated as enemies of
the State.
In the midst of this, Patriarch Tikhon, a man
revered by Orthodox Christians, began to meet
with Exarch Leonid Feodorov and openly discuss
reunion between the Russian Orthodox Church
and the Holy See. The Patriarch also urged the
clergy and laity of the Russian Orthodox Church
to meet with the Greek Catholics to discuss the
same possibility.
Terrified of the possibility of their success,
the Soviet State cracked down on both communions with a vengeance. Show trials resulted
in the execution of the Orthodox bishop of St.
Petersburg and many of the clergy and laity who

60

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January - February 2020

had participated in the discussions. Then, in a
show trial that made headlines throughout the
world, Exarch Leonid and the Latin Rite Hierarchy
stood charged with counterrevolution. After
defending the Catholic Faith before the kangaroo
court as the whole world watched, Exarch Leonid
Feodorov was sentenced to 10 years in the gulag.
Even while imprisoned in a concentration camp
above the Arctic Circle, Exarch Leonid continued
to operate as a priest and to spread the idea of
Reunion among the Orthodox clergy who were
imprisoned with him. After a series of releases
in which he continued to violate the terms of his
release by preaching the Catholic Faith, Exarch
Leonid died in the city now known as Kirov on
March 10, 1935. He was beatified during Pope
John Paul II’s visit to Ukraine in 2001.
The last word is best left to Leonid Feodorov
himself. In a prayer for the reunion of the Russian
Church with the Holy See, he wrote:
“Cast a glance, compassionate Lord Jesus Our
Savior, on the prayers and supplications of Your
sinful and unworthy servants who in all humility
kneel before You, and unite us all in the one and
only Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. Shine
Your never-declining light into our souls. Dissipate
the disorders of the Church. Grant us the grace
to glorify You as a single heart and a single mouth
so that everyone may recognize that we are Your
true disciples and beloved children.
“Merciful Lord, fulfill Your promise without delay that there may be only one flock and a single
Pastor in Your Church and that we may be worthy
of glorifying Your Holy Name, now and forever.
Amen.”
—Brendan D. King

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Christian Culture

A Rebours,
En Route,
and Very Much on Target:
Huysmans and the Apostolate
of the Outsiders

By John Rao, D.Phil. Oxon.

A Rebours is the name of a novel written in
1884 by Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907). Its
anti-hero, Jean des Esseintes, namely Huysmans
in disguise, is disgusted with the dominant,
arrogant, mid to late 19th century “positivist”
vision, which insisted that only empirical,
scientifically verifiable data could reveal the
character of “nature.” His reaction is to abandon
the spirit of the times, to go “against nature”—the
English translation of the title—and to indulge in
a decadent, self-indulgent, and ultimately cynical
aestheticism, totally alien to the practical “blood
and iron” concerns of the mainstream positivist
world.
The author of Against Nature and the socalled Decadent Movement in literature he
was central to creating, both traced their
initial anti-Establishment inspiration to Les
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January - February 2020

Fleurs du Mal (1857) of Charles Baudelaire
(1821-1867). But Baudelaire, a deep admirer
of the counter-revolutionary thinker Joseph
de Maistre, was ultimately encouraging more
than simple decadence to counter the modern
conception of progress. Hence, Huysmans, like
others in the movement, soon realized that the
fanciful excesses of the voluntary “outsider” des
Esseintes, while an understandable response to
the flatness of the “insiders” Zeitgeist, was not
sufficient to deal with modernity’s sickness unto
death. In fact, it was his own reflection upon des
Esseintes’ weaknesses thus actually helped most
to convert the very author who had created this
anti-hero to Catholicism.
Huysmans traces his gradual rejection of
an outsider’s childish, decadent, and nihilistic
decision to live “against nature” as falsely

presented by the positivist with a life guided
by a proper understanding of the natural world
as taught by the Incarnate Word in four further
novels: Là-bas (The Damned, 1891), En Route
(1895), La Cathédrale (1898), and L’Oblat (The
Oblate, 1903). Here, the main character, another
autobiographical figure named Durtal, flees
the dangerous flirtation with demonic forces to
which his decadence has led him. He goes en
route to a Catholicism whose full effect on nature
is symbolized by the cathedral of Chartres,
which inspires him to become an oblate in a
Benedictine monastery. Durtal-Huysmans has
come to realize that he lives in a good natural
world flawed by sin where the believer has to
accept the need for suffering and expiation on his
way to eternal glory.
A man like Huysmans was always an outsider
from the standpoint of many Catholics who did
not grasp the different kind of path that people
who started with Baudelaire and moved through
Decadence and the subsequent Symbolist
Movement had taken to arrive at the fullness
of the Faith. Huysmans’s truly “insider’s” sense
of the importance of orthodox belief and the
dangers to which the dominant mentality
exposed someone seeking to find and maintain
it, can be seen in the alarmed warning regarding
theological Modernism sounded in The Oblate,
which was published the year of St. Pius X’s
election to the See of Peter.
Biographies such as Huysmans’s and his
fellow Decadent-to-Symbolist-to Catholic literary
colleagues are of great interest to me for two
reasons, the first of which is that they contribute
to an understanding of something very important
in the history of the Church: the apostolate of
the outsiders. This apostolate has repeatedly
proven to be an incomparable blessing to the
Mystical Body of Christ, whose “insiders,” clergy,
religious, and laity alike, can often lose their way,
if not in terms of “officially” rejecting the Faith
and destroying the sacraments, certainly in the
sense of neglecting, obscuring, and giving public
scandal to them. It is at such moments that those
who are “outsiders,” whether through their lack of
any power to correct what has gone badly wrong
or their sincere longing for deeper knowledge of
the substance of the Way, the Truth, and Life—

and not its disfigured image— have repeatedly
entered onto the scene to fulfill their role. This
outsider call to “jump start” a failing engine has
the occupational hazard of being misunderstood
and maltreated by the insiders who are not
doing their own job properly. All one has to do
is to look at the accusations of schismatic and
heretical behavior hurled at the monks of Cluny
in the 10th century and the initial reformers of
the Renaissance and Catholic Reformation era to
verify this fact.

Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907), Albert Harlingue/RogerViollet 1905

By now, it will be clear to all of my readers
that the specific and incomparably important
apostolate of the outsiders that concerns me here
is the one that has been exercised for 50 years by
the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX). Founded by a
man who never dreamed that the term “insider”
could possibly be denied him, this apostolate
has unashamedly dedicated itself to teaching
and doing nothing other than what Archbishop
Lefebvre had had the highest official approval for
preaching and promoting throughout his entire
previous vocational career. Moreover, it has
63

Christian Culture
courageously maintained this commitment while
being publically reviled for crimes the injustice
of which only its predecessors in cleaning the
ecclesiastical Augean Stables in previous periods
of mainstream collapse could fully appreciate.
Other contributors to this issue will outline
the many particular accomplishments of the
Society in very detailed ways, being much more
competent to do so as day-to-day laborers
in its multiple fields of endeavor. It was only
after reflecting on what it was that I might
possibly offer in this regard that the “outsider”
Huysmans came to mind, and the second
reason why meditation upon his experience
and that of so many others either following
seemingly “untraditional” paths to the Faith or
rediscovering its fullness in times of confusion
and despair is important: the fact that Christian
charity demands they be taken seriously and
nurtured. It is the Society of Saint Pius X’s
remarkable apostolate to so many other Catholics
or would-be Catholics “on the outside looking
in” in the gravest time of crisis in the history of
the Church—an apostolate of an Outsider to the
Outsiders—that I felt capable of recording for
posterity. For there are many who are “of” the
Society even though not “in” it.
This truth is driven home to me over and over
again on the many occasions I attend Mass at
St. Nicolas du Chardonnet in Paris. There are
men and women in that congregation, very easily
identified by their manner of dress and their
failure to socialize with anyone after Mass is
over, who are not SSPX “insiders.” Nevertheless,
this parish is obviously their home; I recognize
their faces from year to year, and they come
because St. Nicolas is where they see the fullness
of the Faith. They are indeed “in” this community
of believers even if they are officially not “of it”;
no one has turned them away, and it must be
the case that this has kept them sane amidst
the rubble of the Catholic Church and Catholic
Christendom. The apostolate of the outsiders
exercised by the SSPX has been exercised to and
for them as well; there are concentric circles
of outsiders for whom this exercise has been
crucial whether the leadership and members
of the Society are aware of it or not. Although
no historical record is likely ever to associate
64

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January - February 2020

this community with the force responsible for
keeping it spiritually alive, I can at least offer one
bit of evidence for its existence: myself.
It must be a peculiar sensation to feel like an
“insider” in one’s own particular narrow time
and place, but that is certainly not a feeling that
I have ever experienced. Although I had good
parents, a happy home, a wonderful childhood,
and a fruitful educational experience, I can
remember very much always thinking of myself
as something of an outsider peering at a scene
that was just not quite right. What, exactly, was
wrong with the picture was very unclear to my
immature mind, but as my entrance into high
school in the dreadful Year of Modernity called
1965 led to graduation in the still more ominous
one of 1969 it was obvious that the disconnect
between my own life and what “nature” as my
time and place was offering me was becoming
more and more pronounced. And the most
distressing aspect of that disconnect was the fact
that nothing in my personal makeup particularly
disposed me to want to be or to enjoy being “on
the outside looking in.”
Developments portending a still more
thorough-going exile from the world around
me were soon to follow. In the spring of 1970,
my first years as an undergraduate, I was
introduced by one of my history professors
to the entire counter-revolutionary critique of
modern civilization as a whole. Three years
later came entry into Oxford and membership
in an international fraternity of exiles from
modernity determined to make our experience at
that venerable institution an outsiders’ defiance
of a Zeitgeist that looked as though it had the
full backing of the clueless powers that-be,
administrative and student. This was followed
at the end of the decade by the beginning of my
own university career, whose lack of connection
with any current-day “insider” existence can
be read by anyone with the stomach to do so in
the novel posted on my Internet site entitled—
appropriately enough—Periphery. Caveat
emptor! It is the bitter, sardonic, product of
an outsider engaged in a total war against the
distorted nature of my times; someone at that
point still regularly and intensely tempted to
become another—but probably much more

mediocre version of—des Esseintes.
Thankfully, this pull to take the path là-bas
was not uncontested. From the very outset of
my university experiences, there were forces
that where putting me en route. And a constant
companion along the highway towards the true
understanding of the meaning of nature and how
to use it properly to reach eternal life in Christ,
a fellow-traveler that has helped mightily to
pick me up when too weary to go on or turn me
around when ready to go astray has always been
that Apostle to the Outsiders called the Society of
Saint Pius X.
For an outsider I always have been. I only
learned of Archbishop Lefebvre through
Dietrich von Hildebrand and the Roman Forum,
having been introduced to their own countercultural fight against heresy and the Novus
ordo Missae in 1970 by the same university
professor who acquainted me with the secular
counter-revolutionary critique. I merely watched
the opening of the seminary at Écône on a
television screen from Oxford. It was simply as
a representative of the Roman Forum that I was
sent to meet and interview Monsignor Ducaud
Bourget soon after the takeover of St. Nicolas and
have my one and only glimpse of the Archbishop
himself. It was curiosity alone that brought me to
Ridgefield, Connecticut, immediately following
its opening in 1979, to find out what the seminary
training there was like. I was never a member of a
Society parish and I am not one now.
Somehow, this has never stopped the Society
from always welcoming and encouraging me. In
fact, it literally saved me from my most serious
des Esseintes relapse, which took place between
1985 and 1987, when my revolt against an evermore wretched natural world led me entirely to
abandon both my secular counter-revolutionary
and traditionalist Roman Forum commitments.
It did so by pressing me to come to lecture for it
regularly on Church History and the problem of
Americanism and re-awakening my desire to get
back en route. And it has continued to do so with
an openness which I credit more than anything
else for maintaining my sense of self respect and
the value of my historical discipline; keeping me,
more than 30 years hence, from falling once again
prey to the temptations of là-bas.

Openness to outsiders, according to the
Society’s enemies, is not a quality that it
possesses. But openness is a virtue, as I believe
Chesterton said, only when, like a mouth, it
chomps down on something solid. At least, in
my experience, the Society has demonstrated
precisely this kind of openness encouraging
valuable influences that it might not have
considered part of its mission at the outset, and
gaining strength in the process. Dare I suggest,
in proof of this fact, that St. Mary’s Kansas today
is a quite different phenomenon, academically
and culturally, than it was some decades ago? It
has benefited from this proper openness, just as
the Catholic world of the turn of the 20th century
benefited from Huysmans and other outsiders like
him.
But once again, these outside influences
have proven their value in union with a Society
committed to the unum necessarium: handing
down the Tradition full and intact that was
handed down to us, something which the
mainstream Church is, to say the least, very
confused about doing. Reveling in being outside
and avant garde for their own sake, is, as
Huysmans was well aware, a very dangerous
game to play, with some of the would-be
Catholics whom he knew who continued to
indulge that narrow sport feeding the Modernist
Movement he vigorously condemned. Outsiders
have been a blessing for the Church only as a
force working to enrich and strengthen Tradition,
ultimately from the inside.
Let us hope that it will not take another 50
years en route for an event to take place that so
many of us “of” but not “in” the Society fervently
pray to be able to see: the day when the mission
of Archbishop Lefebvre is vindicated, and the
errors of an ecclesiastical Zeitgeist which has
truly gone a rebours are targeted and chastised
with what Dietrich von Hildebrand labeled “the
glorious and liberating words—anathema sit!

65

Christian Culture

Letter to a Young Lady

About
Strength
By Fr. Vincent Gelineau

Dear Miss Agnes,
It certainly takes a lot of courage to remain
a Christian today! In your nursing school, you
feel very alone. The months pass and you find
yourself measuring the difference between
yourself and your classmates. You often speak
to me about Isabel whom you get along with
well, but that she is completely incapable of any
supernatural reflection. You have the impression
that you are wasting your time when you explain
to her why you are against euthanasia. And you
don’t even dare speak to her about the Mass or
pilgrimages, since you have so little hope of being
understood.
This solitude weighs upon you. You aren’t
tempted by that which tempts your comrades.
This life, without effort, without conviction,
nourished by the little smartphone screen, seems
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insignificant and pitiable to you. It remains, all
the same, quite seductive. It is so easy to go
along with the world, to follow the current, but
it takes courage to keep wearing the elegant
skirt that singles you out. Today, you understand
better what human respect means. You look with
compassion at your friends who have little by
little crumbled under the pressure of the college
atmosphere and who have lost the fervor of their
younger years. In order not to meet opposition,
they have hidden their Faith. They have found for
themselves a passion for reality television. Little
by little, they have removed themselves from
prayer and the sacraments. The worst is yet to be
feared.
You do not want anything like this for yourself.
But you fear that the anonymous pressure of this
indifferent class of people will dominate your

good resolutions. If at least, you had obvious
enemies to deal with, things would be simpler.
It suffers you to follow the example of the virgin
martyrs, in particular that of St. Agnes, your
patron saint.
But what can you do, faced with the creeping
opposition that you are met with? Your dear
friend Isabel could not suspect how much you
are annoyed by her intellectual inertia, she who
repeats often that each person has their own
truth. This permits her to avoid each and every
serious question. With the demission of the
intelligence which refuses to bear judgment and
the nullity of the will, which is captivated by the
latest news, the idea of the virtue of force has

but then perhaps you will have the joy of
awakening a soul of good will and to help him
to know the Catholic Faith. In effect, your
classmates who seem to be hermetic to all
supernatural reflection cannot help but to
admire you. Some have even made the effort to
come to your grandmother’s funeral. Do not be
discouraged; your good example will bear fruit.
Do not be a mediocre and contemptible soul
under the pretext of false prudence. Do not follow
your shy natural bent, but continue to be a good
example which comforts the weak and touches
those who are plunged in error and vice.
Remember your patron saint, who, regardless
of her young age, kept all of her constancy when

completely disappeared from circulation and
heroism seems to be out of place today. In fact,
your comrades, even though very nice to you,
won’t understand anything when you explain to
the professors why you are resolutely opposed
to abortion. This indifference discourages any
frank reaction. You will see there, surely, a
trap inhabited by the demon: wanting no more
Christians, he doesn’t want any more martyrs
or open persecutions. He is contented with
anesthetizing intelligences and wills so they
won’t be able to react and thus lose their souls.
This gentle persecution is worse that the first,
because it doesn’t make martyrs, but only
apostates.
But do not fear. It isn’t sure that you won’t
die a martyr. You will have to suffer in being
overlooked, in being put in a separate category,

faced with a tyrant who menaced her virtue and
her life. Delivered miraculously from the pains of
fire, she chided the executioner who hesitated in
giving her the death blow: “What are you doing?
What are you waiting for? What is holding you
back? Kill this body which can be seen by men
and which I do not want to be seen, and let the
soul live, which is agreeable to the eyes of God.”
Let this remembrance help you to fight against
human respect, which all too often neutralizes
the best of resolutions. It doesn’t help to uselessly
provoke hostile reactions. But do not forget that
you are of the family of saints and martyrs. Like
them, your soul is nourished with solid doctrine
and elevated by sanctifying grace. Dare to live as
a true Catholic!
Translated from the French by Associate Editor Miss Jane
Carver.

67

Christian Culture

Who Is My
Child?
By the Sisters of the SSPX

A mother leans over her baby’s bassinet.
“There’s my little man whom I will love, take care
of, and educate for the next 20 years. Who are
you, little Peter, you whom God has confided to
me?” In effect, this is a fundamental question.
Who is this, this little man? From the response to
this question depends the choice of education he
will receive. If one responds, like Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, that a child is good by nature, one
will educate him according to the standards of
our current society. The result is, alas, not very
compelling.

From the Senses to
the Intelligence
St. Thomas Aquinas borrowed from the Greek
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philosopher Aristotle when said that man is a
“reasonable animal.” His mother protests “Little
Peter is not an animal!” No, of course not! There
is an abyss between a kitten and a man, the
abyss of the intelligence. But little Peter still has
a body and senses, and it is this that first solicits
the attention of the parents; one must give him
physical care, but since the very beginning, there
are good habits which must be communicated to
him. These are the first foundations of education:
to have a regular routine for meal times and
bed time, to learn to obey without crying, not to
touch electrical outlets—and if he does, there
will be a little smack on his hand—to sit up
straight in a chair without squirming, etc.
It is of course understood that we won’t hold
his development there because his intelligence
and will must be formed. But it is only little by

little that the intelligence will blossom. It is only
little by little that Peter will acquire language,
which is the tool of thought, a tool which will
be perfected from infancy all the way to the
philosophical dissertations of his senior year.
It is only little by little that he will acquire the
habit of judgment and reflection. He will have
many sessions of trial and error before arriving
at thoughts which are all his own. This is why
it is necessary to adapt the education to the
capacity of the child’s comprehension. In the
beginning, it is the parents who will think for the
child, because he is still incapable. It is useless
to tell little Peter at three years old that he must
eat his green beans because they contain the
vitamins which are indispensable for his growth.
It is much simpler: “Peter, eat your green beans.
If not, you won’t have any dessert.” Period. The
rest is superfluous conversation. That which
Peter is capable of understanding at this age and
that which he has need of learning are not the
principles of nutrition, but that it is the parents
who command and the child who obeys. Later, he
will understand that it is all for his good.
Obviously, the more that Peter grows, the
necessary explanations will need to be given
to him. An adolescent does not obey simply
because his father said so. But what he needs
are explanations, not justifications. Authority
does not have to “justify” in detail how wellfounded are its orders. The father and the mother
give their orders because they are the parents,
because they are responsible before God for
the children entrusted to them. But in order for
these orders to be obeyed by the children, it is
necessary to give them certain reasons, certain
circumstances which surround them, in order
that the child, who will become an adult in his
turn, has learned to guide himself. “No, Peter,
you are not permitted to spend the weekend with
Kevin. There is a whole collection of video games
that you would surely play. And you know very
well what worth is found in those games. But you
can invite him over to our house. He would be
able to benefit well from a true family ambiance.
A friendship’s worth is measured by the good
that one exchanges.” This example would be the
occasion for a serious discussion from the father
with his growing son about true friendship.

Be careful! Even if he doesn’t yet know how
to express himself well, the intelligence is still
there and the small child understands what
one says much more than one might believe. No
commentaries should be made between friends
about the children in front of the children,
because they will surely be listening without
appearing to do so. “Oh, dear friend, your little
Agatha is so cute with her little curls and blue
eyes! And you even made her dress! She is just
so adorable!” Behold! Those comments have not
fallen on deaf ears…alas!

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Christian Culture
From Sin to Grace
But we have not yet exhausted the entire
description of the little man in saying that he
is a reasonable animal. Peter is a son of Adam,
marked by the consequences of original sin.
It is also since his baptism that he has been
elevated to being a child of God, elevated to
the supernatural state by sanctifying grace and
destined for eternal life.
Since little Peter has been marked by original
sin and the tendency to evil that is to follow,
this is seen, alas, rather early in his life; it is a
truth of experience. The first tantrums manifest
themselves quickly. From as young as six months
old, the child is perfectly capable of making
difficulties which are completely unreasonable:
Emily cries the moment her mother puts her
into her crib; one absolutely has to pick her up
and she only sleeps when she is overcome by
tiredness. John is very hungry for dessert, but not
at all for spinach; he is extremely tired when it is
time to clean his room, learn his lessons, or help
his mother, but he finds all of his vitality again to
play football or tease his little sister; there is an
incredible capacity to invent lies to make himself
sound important, etc. No, it doesn’t matter what
Rousseau said, man is not born naturally good.
It would be an absolute crime to let a child do
exactly what he wants when he wants. Poor little
modern children who have never had anything
refused to them and who are nothing more than
the object of their impulsions, of their untamed
passions! Having become adults, they will clearly
see that their passions destroy them (passion of
laziness, impurity, ambition, alcohol, pleasure…),
but enchained by 20 years of bad habits, they do
not have the strength to resist themselves.
Luckily, the grace of God is strongly present
in the little soul of the baptized, in order to heal,
little by little, all of these bad tendencies and to
elevate to the highest heights his destiny of a
future inhabitant of paradise. A baptized child
opens himself very quickly and spontaneously
to the entire supernatural universe. Readily, he
will blow a kiss to Jesus before bedtime, a sign of
his future night prayers. There is, within himself,
an entire supernatural universe where he dives
head first. The stories of Jesus and Mary capture
the soul opened by grace to the divine mysteries.
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The ardent practice of “the good” makes for a
complete other motive, and how much more
enthusiastically will the young soul respond to
such a request as: “What are you going to do this
year during Lent to console Jesus who is so sad
because of our sins? Will you make an effort
to clean your room every evening without me
having to ask you? This will make Jesus happy.”
To aid the missionaries, children can deprive
themselves of treats and send the corresponding
money, with the aid of their parents, for this
or that mission in a poor country. To convert
sinners or deliver the souls in Purgatory, children
are capable of very great generosity. It is up to
the adults to spark, encourage, and channel
them. At baptism, this life of faith plants the seed
in the soul and it needs abundant education to
fully develop: good examples, family prayers,
religious instruction, the reception of the
sacraments…
Torn between so many contrary tendencies
(animal…but intelligent; sinner…but supported
by grace), how are we surprised that the soul of
a child sometimes resembles that of a battlefield,
where so many opposing tendencies clash? Here
is where the entire balance of education is found.
One realizes, after having become an adult, that
a little man must fully comprehend that he is
a general charged with combat. He must take
to himself the proper account of his struggles
during life in order to let grace triumph so that he
becomes a saint.
Translated from the French by Associate Editor Miss Jane
Carver

By Fr. Juan Carlos Iscara, SSPX

Why is it only in Luke’s
account that we learn
of the “good thief”?
Could you please explain the variations
between the accounts of Our Lord’s Passion,
as written by Matthew, Mark, and Luke—
specifically regarding the thieves crucified with
Our Lord. Why is it only in Luke’s account that
we learn of the “good thief” but in the other two
accounts both thieves are said to have reviled
Our Lord? Isn’t this a contradiction which

undermines the divinely-revealed character of the
Gospels?
The Evangelists, each one of them, had a
particular intention when writing their Gospels,
and consequently they focused on particular
aspects of Our Lord’s life and teachings.
Their differences are not discrepancies or
contradictions, but only highlight their different
approaches to the story. Thus, even when relating
the same events, sometimes they focus on one
detail and omit others, or they reorder the
succession of events and sayings, or they refer

Christian Culture
to different moments of the same event.
That explains away the apparent
“contradiction.” Initially, both thieves insulted
and mocked Our Lord, as reported by St. Mark
and St. Matthew. But then, as reported by St.
Luke, one of the thieves, hearing Christ’s words
on the Cross and seeing His forgiveness towards
those who had crucified Him, acknowledged that
Our Lord was indeed the Messiah, repented of
his previous insults and asked—and received!—
Christ’s forgiveness.

What is the history of the
Apostles’ Creed? Was this
also approved by a Council?
We know the Nicene Creed was agreed upon
and promulgated by the Councils of Nicaea
and Constantinople. What is the history of the
Apostles’ Creed? Was this also approved by a
Council?
The Apostles’ Creed is a brief summary of
the principal doctrines of our Faith. Rufinus of
Aquileia (c. 410) relates a tradition according to
which the apostles, before separating to follow
their missions among different nations and
peoples, agreed to write down a summary of
Christian doctrine, to be used as a basis for their
teachings and as a rule of faith for the believers,
each apostle having composed one of the 12
articles of the Creed. This explanation, taken
up by St. Ambrose in the 6th century, prevailed
during medieval times, but in the Council of
Ferrara (1438) it came as a surprise when Mark
Eugenius, the Greek archbishop of Ephesus,
declared that the Eastern churches did not know
the formula of the Creed used by the Roman
church.
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In fact, its essential contents date from the
apostolic age, but its present form developed
gradually in the Latin Church and its history
is closely related to the development of the
baptismal liturgy and the preparation of the
catechumens. From the times of the apostles
it was the practice of the Church to require an
explicit profession of faith in the fundamental
Christian doctrines. The candidates for baptism
had to learn it by heart and recite it in the
presence of the whole congregation as an integral
part of the liturgy.
The Roman rite of baptism, as described in the
Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus, contains
a Creed of eight Trinitarian and Christological
articles: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty.
/ I believe in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, / who
was born of the Virgin Mary, / and was crucified
under Pontius Pilate, and was dead and buried, /
and rose again the third day, alive from the dead,
/ and ascended into Heaven, / and sits at the right
hand of the Father, / and will come to judge the
living and the dead. / I believe in the Holy Spirit,
in the holy Church,/ and the resurrection of the
body.”
By the end of the 2nd century, Tertullian knew
this Roman Creed and attested to its composition
long before his times. From the 3rd century
onwards, it spread until it prevailed everywhere
in the Western Church.
The present text is first to be found in the
writings of St. Cesarius of Arles, about the middle
of the 6th century. It differs from the previous
versions chiefly by reason of a few additions
(descended into Hell, the communion of saints,
life everlasting). Although this liturgical and
catechetical monument, in its present form, was
not elaborated or specifically approved by a
Council, it is nonetheless the infallible expression
of the daily teaching of the Church since the
apostolic times.

Is there such a thing as baptism
of desire for the unborn?
In quite a few pro-life websites and
publications the practice of the “baptism” of the
unborn is promoted. Others, equally prompted
by pious thoughts, argue that aborted babies
may receive the grace of the baptism of desire,
a desire supplied by well-meaning strangers.
Unfortunately, these proposals do not correspond
to Catholic doctrine.
First of all, sacraments are only for living
human beings, not for angels or separated
souls. Only those who are in statu viae, “in
the wayfaring state,” i.e. alive in this world, are
capable of receiving grace through the mediation
of a sensible sign, the matter and form of the
sacrament. In consequence, a dead child, an
aborted baby, cannot receive this sacrament.
In the early Church, there were heretics
and even misguided Catholics who attempted
to “baptize” dead catechumens, by making a
profession of Faith on their behalf and then
sprinkling the bodies with baptismal water. This
practice was condemned by the third Council of
Carthage in 397.
Secondly, we must rightly understand what
baptism of desire is. St. Augustine stated that
the actual reception of baptism may be supplied

only in two ways, by martyrdom and by faith
and conversion of heart (De Baptismo contra
donatistas, IV, 22, 25). This means that an
unbaptized person who, without fault on his
part, is unable to receive sacramental baptism,
may still receive sanctifying grace through an
act of perfect charity or of perfect contrition for
sin, acts which, in themselves, at least implicitly,
include the desire to receive the sacrament,
inasmuch as they include the desire to fulfill all
the commands of Christ.
Pius XII, in his address to Italian midwives
in October 1951, clearly stated that such an
act of love is sufficient for the adult to obtain
sanctifying grace and to supply the lack of
baptism. But to the as yet unborn and to the
newborn, this way is not open. In the present
economy of salvation, apart from sacramental
baptism, there is no other way to communicate
that life to the child who has not attained the
use of reason. That is exactly what St. Thomas
Aquinas taught: before receiving sacramental
baptism, infants in no way have Baptism in
desire; but adults alone may have (Summa
Theologica III, q. 73, a.3). Therefore, no, there is
not a thing as baptism of desire for the unborn.

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73

Step softly, under snow or rain,
To find the place where men can pray;
The way is all so very plain
That we may lose the way.
Oh, we have learnt to peer and pore
On tortured puzzles from our youth,
We know all labyrinthine lore,
We are the three wise men of yore,
And we know all things but the truth.
We have gone round and round the hill
And lost the wood among the trees,
And learnt long names for every ill,
And served the mad gods, naming still
The furies the Eumenides.
The gods of violence took the veil
Of vision and philosophy,
The Serpent that brought all men bale,
He bites his own accursed tail,
And calls himself Eternity.
Go humbly…it has hailed and snowed…
With voices low and lanterns lit;
So very simple is the road,
That we may stray from it.
The world grows terrible and white,
And blinding white the breaking day;
We walk bewildered in the light,
For something is too large for sight,
And something much too plain to say.
The Child that was ere worlds begun
(…We need but walk a little way,
We need but see a latch undone…)
The Child that played with moon and sun
Is playing with a little hay.
The house from which the heavens are fed,
The old strange house that is our own,
Where trick of words are never said,
And Mercy is as plain as bread,
And Honour is as hard as stone.
Go humbly, humble are the skies,
And low and large and fierce the Star;
So very near the Manger lies
That we may travel far.
Hark! Laughter like a lion wakes
To roar to the resounding plain.
And the whole heaven shouts and shakes,
For God Himself is born again,
And we are little children walking
Through the snow and rain.
G.K. Chesterton

Catechism

Questions

Complex

& Simple
Answers

Part One: Prof. Felix Otten, O.P. and C.F. Pauwels

Editor’s Note: This article is the first in a series of straightforward responses to frequently encountered questions and objections
concerning the Catholic Faith. The questions and answers are adapted from Professor Felix Otten ,O.P. and C.F. Pauwels O.P.’s The
Most Frequently Encountered Difficulties, published originally in Dutch in 1939.

How can there be a
God if there is so much
misery in the world?
It is common to hear people contend that there
is no God because the world is full of misery.
Whether man-made or the product of natural
disasters (tornadoes, volcanoes, earthquakes,
etc.), misery is everywhere. Then there are as
well the miseries caused by starvation, economic
inequality, and conflicts between peoples and
nations.
We must have a very strange idea of ​​God to
conclude from such facts that there is no God: as
if God should be ready everywhere to take away
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the harshness and cruelty of life. Certainly, there
are atrocities in nature, but that is a necessary
consequence of the interacting parts of nature,
which is part of creation and therefore limited
and finite in perfection. Parasites, for example,
live and enjoy life at the expense of others.
But the animals on which they parasitize often
live and also enjoy life. The pain caused by the
parasites can be borne by them; otherwise they
could not live.
All forces of nature are good for the whole;
there are no purely destructive forces of nature
that do nothing but destroy. Earthquakes, firespitting mountains, etc. are common in nature

as a whole and have a useful purpose in that
whole. But something that is good for the whole
can sometimes be harmful to a component in
its elaboration. And so the forces of nature can
sometimes be harmful to humans, who, after all,
also belong to nature and are part of that.
The slaughter of men in wars and similar
miseries, in which the free will of the people
plays a role, are not due to God, but to those
who do not keep His laws. God is our Father, for
sure. But we, the children of God, are immature
children and sometimes very degenerate
children. We are free beings who can misuse our
freedom. When we misuse that freedom we act
against God’s will and such a misconduct should
never be used as an indictment of God. And that
misconduct also brings poverty, inequality, and
so forth.
Some may retort, “But can God just allow that
misconduct? He can prevent it!”
God can allow that. He need not stop the
disasters that result from misconduct. He is not
obliged to restore what spoils man. If He gives
people the glorious gift of freedom, man must
not demand that He prevent any abuse thereof
through special intervention.
Moreover, it must be borne in mind that
natural evil in the world (not moral evil,
namely sin; but suffering, disasters, wars, and
poverty, etc.) still has something good in it: as a
punishment for moral evil, as a means to repent,
as a training school for virtue, etc. Therefore, God
may even allow this kind of evil in a certain sense
for our correction from the path of moral evil.

Why did God create
people who are lost and
who will be damned?
Another common contention is that God, Who
is all-knowing, knows who will be lost. This leads
some to wonder, “Then why did God even create
these people?” After all, Christ Himself says of
Judas: “It would have been better if this person
had not been born” (Mt. 2:6 & 2:4).
If God would designate one man for damnation

and the other for salvation, without regard to
man’s actions, then this was indeed a major
difficulty. But it is something very different. God
knows beforehand who will be lost and who will
be saved; but He also knows that no one is lost
through no fault of their own!
God wants all people to be saved. Christ died
for all people. So, all people can be saved on
their own. That some do not “get it” is due to the
misuse of their will, that is, due to their voluntary
sins. God does not condemn the people. When
the matter is viewed properly, it is clear that the
sinner condemns himself.
There is nothing to the argument that God
created men who cannot be saved. That God
allows, that is, does not prevent a man from
being lost through his own fault is also not proof
against God’s goodness and wisdom. For we must
never forget that the main goal, the absolute goal
of creation, is God Himself, namely the glory of
God.
The happiness of people is only the secondary
goal. But because people are endowed with
reason and therefore free creatures, this
secondary goal is only a conditional goal: that is,
it is only achieved on condition that the people do
not go against God’s intention with regard to their
happiness by abusing their free will. Due to this
freedom, people can throw away their happiness
themselves.
God will not drag someone kicking and
screaming into Heaven.

Can God repent of something
that He has done?
A final problem we will deal with is whether
God can repent of something He has done. After
all, we read in Scripture that God says: “I am
sorry I created man.”
We read these words in the Book of Genesis
6:6. They were spoken by God in response to the
many and great sins of men before the flood. And
if they are understood correctly, they are not at
all contrary to God’s Providence, nor to God’s
immutability. God is all-knowing: past, present,
and future are open to Him. He oversees
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Catechism
everything in one infinite act of His divine mind.
God is also absolutely unchangeable in His
decisions because He is infinitely perfect.
So, God can never have “regret” about
anything for that implies an imperfection, i.e., a
lack of prior knowledge where something turns
out differently than calculated. As such, from
eternity God knew that people would sin; and He
had also decided from eternity to punish those
sins by the flood.
But the writers of the Biblical books were
people who wrote for other people, and so they
expressed themselves in a human way. For
example, these authors also speak about the eyes
and hands of God, although God has neither eyes
nor hands. And if it is said in the Bible that God
was sorry to have created man, then the writer
is using this human saying not to express God’s
changeability, but to show clearly God’s anger
at those who sin. It is therefore a metaphor with
which we humans, with our limited mind and our
corresponding expressions, speak about God in a
human and imperfect way.

78

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January - February 2020

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Theological Studies

Bishop Schneider on the Problem of a

Heretical
Pope
By Fr. Jean-Michel Gleize

On March 21, 2019, the “Blog de Jeanne Smits”
published a French translation of a long text by His
Excellency Bishop Athanasius Schneider published
in English the day before on Rorate-Caeli.blogspot.
com. The French journalist presented her translation under the suggestive title “On the Question
of a Heretical Pope: Bishop Athanasius Schneider
Sheds Light on the Debate.” Bishop Schneider seeks
to bring everything down to one specific question: “How to handle a heretical pope, in concrete
terms?”1 The question is considered on the practical
level. This level must include not only necessary and
absolute principles, but also variable and relative
circumstances. The difficult part is putting each
of the two in its proper place, in a truly heavenly
perspective.

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Schneider’s Principles and the Society’s
Are Bishop Schneider’s considerations inspired
by the same principles as those held by Archbishop
Lefebvre and the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX)?
Without denying the grave harm heresy represents
for the Church or underestimating the importance
of the integrity of the Faith, the prelate rather insists
upon a different aspect of the question raised by
the supposed heresy of the pope. In his eyes, the
opinion according to which the Church has an
authority over the pope and in the event of a heresy
on his part could depose him or at least declare his
demise manifests “the unhealthy attitude of a popecentrism, of papolatria ultimately.”
He says those who hold this opinion make the
pope “a kind of half-god, who cannot commit any
errors, not even in the realm outside the object of
papal infallibility.” It is “an indirect or subconscious

identification of the Church with the pope or [a way
of] making the pope the focal point of the daily life
of the Church. This means ultimately and subconsciously a yielding to unhealthy ultramontanism,
pope-centrism, and papolatry, i.e. a papal personality cult.” According to Bishop Schneider, this opinion
“originated only in the High Middle Ages, in a time
when pope-centrism arrived at a certain high point,
when unconsciously the pope was identified with the
Church as such.” And he sees it as “the root of the
mundane attitude of an absolutist prince according
to the motto: ‘L’État, c’est moi!’ or in ecclesiastical
terms: ‘I am the Church’!”
This truly astonishing way of presenting the issue reveals a viewpoint inherited from the “nouvelle
théologie.”2 With all due respect to Bishop Schneider,
papolatry, pope-centrism, and ultramontanism are
nothing but words, words that have been overused and misused for the purpose of discrediting
the best theological tradition3 that was careful to
define the power of the pope in keeping with the
initial elements offered by divine Revelation. What
is more, the Church cannot be defended against
the pope, and the difficulty that the hypothesis of a
pope tyrannizing the Church presents for ecclesiology must be resolved in the light of the definition
of the Papacy, for a good definition always includes
the answers to the objections that may be raised
against it. This definition is contained in the sources
of divine Revelation and in the constant teachings of
the Church’s Magisterium that explain it.
The First Principle of Ecclesiology
The first principle of all ecclesiology is expressed
in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, (16:18). St.
Peter and all his successors, the bishops of Rome,
are the “rock” on which Christ unceasingly builds
His Church, and by this we are to understand that
the pope, as the successor of St. Peter, is the Vicar
of Christ, and as such, the head of the entire Church;
the primacy, that is to say, the power of supreme
and universal jurisdiction, is his. Such is the constant and unanimous teaching of Tradition, and the
first Vatican Council and Popes Leo XIII in his encyclical Satis Cognitum and Pius XII in his encyclical
Mystici Corporis give the fully developed expression
of it. Leo XIII clearly declares that this truth is not a
medieval exaggeration and he proves his point by
quoting the Fathers of the Church: “These declara-

tions,” he says, “were preceded by the consent of
antiquity which ever acknowledged, without the
slightest doubt or hesitation, the bishops of Rome,
and revered them, as the legitimate successors of
St. Peter. Who is unaware of the many and evident
testimonies of the holy Fathers which exist to this
effect?”4
Theologians have done nothing but repeat and
develop these divinely-revealed teachings. The
Church therefore is indeed, in a certain sense, in the
pope as in her head, according to the expression
attributed to St. Ambrose: Ubi Petrus, ibi et Ecclesia,
in the sense that, as Leo XIII recalls, “the Roman
Church is the efficient cause of unity in the Christian
commonwealth.”5
The Pope’s Jurisdictional Powers
What is more, considering the pope as the
supreme head of the entire Church on the level of
his jurisdictional power properly speaking does not
lead these theologians to make of him a “half-god,”
infallible in all his actions on the different level of his
magisterial power. Cajetan, for example, declares
that outside of the limits of a judgment passed with
authority on a matter of Faith, the pope does indeed
“risk being mistaken more than all the rest of the
Church in matters of Faith.”6 It is true that, according to the most common opinion of the theologians,
the simply ordinary papal Magisterium is considered
as being habitually unerring, but that is not the same
thing as infallibility in the strict sense of the word.
Remember, too, that the pope is not alone. The
ordinary teaching of the entire hierarchy of the
Church, by the very fact that it is constant and
unanimous, is an infallible sign, for it is guaranteed
against any error thanks to the “charism of truth,
which certainly is, was, and always will be in the
succession of the episcopacy from the apostles.
The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may
be tailored according to what seems better and
more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that
the absolute and immutable truth preached by the
apostles from the beginning may never be believed
to be different, may never be understood in any
other way.”7
This is a different type of divine assistance, quite
distinct from the charism “of truth and unerring
faith” granted to St. Peter and his successors and
described in the constitution Pastor Aeternus.8

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Theological Studies
With this other type of assistance, the entire hierarchy of the “Church teaching,” not only the pope, but
also all the bishops with him and under him, enjoys
this “charism of truth” thanks to which the “Church
taught” can trust the ordinary teaching of the
Magisterium of the entire episcopate without any
risk of error in their beliefs.
But above all, as we recalled earlier, it is the very
definition of the papacy that provides the principle
that will resolve the present difficulty. The Pope,
successor of St. Peter, is essentially and by definition the “Vicar of Christ.” That is the meaning of the
Gospel metaphor in which St. Peter (and with him
each and every one of his successors) is compared
to a “foundation” on which Christ builds His Church.
Once again, it is Leo XIII9 who tells us how we are to
understand this expression, referring, as usual, to
the teachings of the Fathers of the Church:10 “When
he heard ‘thou art a rock,’ he was ennobled by the
announcement. Although he is a rock, not as Christ
is a rock, but as Peter is a rock. For Christ is by His
very being an immovable rock; Peter only through
this rock.11 Christ imparts His gifts and is not exhausted. …He is a rock and constitutes a rock.”
The Foundation of the Church
The Pope is the foundation of the Church only
by participation, and in dependency on Christ, who
is this foundation by essence; that is the meaning
of the consecrated expression in which we confess
as a truth of the Faith that the pope is the “Vicar
of Christ.” Leo XIII’s predecessor, Pope St. Leo the
Great, expressed the same idea when he placed
on Our Lord’s lips the following words to St. Peter:
“Although I am the indestructible rock, I the cornerstone who make both things one, I the foundation
on which no one can lay another, you also are rock
because you are made firm in my strength. What
belongs properly to my own power you share with
me by participation.”12
This idea was developed by Fr. Calmel in a beautiful text whose unequaled depth, along with the wise
decisions of Archbishop Lefebvre, should serve
Catholics of our days more than ever as food for
thought and provide them with the true answers to
the true questions. The first truth this text begins
by recalling is the very one that Bishop Schneider’s
considerations unfortunately tend to downplay:
“There is no Church without an infallible Vicar of

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January - February 2020

Christ who enjoys the Primacy.” This truth is the
divinely-revealed principle that should serve as
the basis for any theological considerations on the
Church. “Jesus Christ desired a Church with the
bishop of Rome at her head, as His visible vicar and
at the same time the bishop of bishops and of the
entire flock. He conferred upon him the prerogative
of the rock so that the edifice would never collapse.
He prayed with an effective prayer for him at least,
of all the bishops, never to fail in the Faith in such a
way that, having recovered after the failings from
which he will not necessarily be preserved, he might
ultimately confirm his brothers in the Faith; or if it
is not he in person who confirms his brethren in the
Faith, it might be one of his first successors.”
The other idea that immediately follows from this
principle, in which it is contained in act, is that “no
matter the miseries, even on the religious level, of
this visible and temporary vicar of Jesus Christ, it is
Jesus Himself who governs His Church, who governs
His vicar in the government of His Church, who governs His vicar in such a way that he cannot engage
his supreme authority in upheavals or complicities
that would change the religion.” Indeed, “if the pope
is the visible vicar of Jesus who ascended into the
invisible heavens, he is no more than a vicar: vices
gerens, he stands in for Him, but remains someone
else. …While the pope is preserved from error when
he engages his authority in the matters and manner
in which it is infallible, he can err in other cases. If he
errs in matters other than those covered by infallibility, this does not keep the one head of the Church,
the invisible sovereign priest, from continuing to
govern His Church.”
The papacy’s essentially vicarious role therefore
signifies that “the Church is not the Mystical Body of
the pope”; instead, it signifies that “the Church with
the pope is the Mystical Body of Christ.” And there
we have the divinely-revealed and absolutely necessary principle that provides us with the solution to
the difficulty raised by the hypothetical situation of
a heretical pope; the power of the pope is limited by
Christ and not by the Church.13
The Limits of Schneider’s Considerations
In application of this principle, Fr. Calmel concludes as follows, in terms that show how limited
Bishop Schneider’s considerations prove: “The
weaknesses of a pope must not make us forget

even for a moment the solidity and sanctity of the
lordship of Our Savior, or keep us from seeing the
power and wisdom of Jesus who holds in the palm of
His hand even insufficient popes, who contains their
insufficiencies within impassable limits.” Indeed, the
means by which the Church protects herself against
the possible heresy of a pope is first and foremost,
in its fundamental principle, this lordship of the
Savior, the sovereign power of the invisible head that
is essentially the foundation of the Church, the rock
from which Peter receives his own stability. And this
lordship of the Savior that preserves the Church
from the weaknesses of the pope is exercised
through the papacy itself. The means of protection
against the heresy of a pope is not, strictly speaking,
as Bishop Schneider claims, most likely under the
influence of the new ecclesiology of Lumen Gentium,
“the substituting ministry of the representatives of
the episcopacy” or “the invincible sensus fidei of the
faithful.”
The means is the very regency of Christ as it is
exercised through the pope, to keep the gates of Hell
from ever prevailing against the Church. To those
who would object that this regency of Christ cannot
do without the secondary causes, the very principle
of papacy’s vicarious nature offers the answer: it is
first and foremost (primo et per se as our scholastic
authors would have put it) through the pope that
Christ gives the Church the means to protect herself
against the pope. The pope must remain the first
of all the secondary causes through which Christ
rules over His Church, respecting the order He
Himself has established. And it is from the pope that
the other living forces of Tradition and the Church
will receive the means to protect themselves from
heresy.
The Faith of the Church comes to her from Christ
always through the intervention of the pope. What
Vatican Council II chose to call a “sensus fidei” is
not the result of an assistance from the Holy Ghost
directly applied to the entire body of the faithful.
Nor do the “representatives of the episcopacy” have
any “substituting ministry” to replace a defective
papacy, as if the Holy Ghost directly preserved the
Church in her Faith and morals by means of a college of cardinals or bishops.
The Gospel promises apply first and foremost to
the See of St. Peter. And it is in remaining attached
to this See and clinging to the age-old teachings of

its living Magisterium that both the simple faithful
and the bishops can protect themselves against the
possible failings of the present pope. Christ thus
unceasingly preserves the faithful and the pastors
from the present attacks of heresy thanks to all the
past teachings of the only “rock” upon which He
built His only Church once and for all.
The Sense of Faith
We do not deny that the “sense of the Faith” or
more precisely the “sensus catholicus” of the faithful
can have a role to play in resisting heresy; but this
role is that of a rule that is itself regulated, not by
the Holy Ghost as Vatican II claims,14 but by the past
teachings of the Magisterium of the popes. Nor do
we deny that the representatives of the episcopate
can compensate for the failings of a heretical pope;
but this compensation is made possible through
direct dependency not on the Holy Ghost but on
the former Magisterium of all the popes who came
before the pope who has fallen into heresy. This was
the argument that Archbishop Lefebvre constantly
developed to explain his conduct and he summed it
up perfectly at the episcopal consecrations on June
30, 1988.
“It seems to me, my dear brethren, that I am
hearing the voices of all these popes—since Gregory
XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Benedict XV, Pius
XI, Pius XII—telling us: ‘Please, we beseech you,
what are you going to do with our teachings, with
our preaching, with the Catholic Faith? Are you going
to abandon it? Are you going to let it disappear from
this earth? Please, please, continue to keep this
treasure which we have given you. Do not abandon
the faithful, do not abandon the Church! Continue
the Church!’… This is why we are convinced that, by
the act of these consecrations today, we are obeying the call of these popes and as a consequence
the call of God, since they represent Our Lord Jesus
Christ in the Church.”
The entire strength of this argument comes from
the very definition of the papacy, that is to say, from
the papal power’s essentially vicarious nature. For,
in order to be vicar, it has to be the one and unceasing echo of the one and unceasing word of the same
Christ. All the weight of the past echoes always
repeating the same things thus represents the solid
foundation on which the Church can constantly depend. For Christ remains the same yesterday, to-

83

Theological Studies
day and forever, through the Magisterium of the See
of St. Peter, which is the ever-living Magisterium,
be it past or present, the “proximate and universal
criterion of truth in matters of Faith and morals,” as
Pius XII put it.15
While ancient theologians did consider the possibility of declaring the demise of a pope who had
fallen into heresy, the reason they gave was the very
authority of the positive divine law, whose expression they believed they discovered in the sources
of Revelation. In keeping with the first principle of
ecclesiology, they considered the pope as the Vicar
of Christ and therefore thought that only Christ
possessed enough authority to remove a pope from
power. The idea that the Church here below could
have any authority over the pope to depose him was
unacceptable in their eyes. Therefore, if proclaiming the loss of the papacy is not to be considered a
sufficiently well-grounded hypothesis, it is not, as
Bishop Schneider believes, because it would be the
excessive consequence of an excessive principle. It
is because the pope remains in his essential definition the vicar of Christ and the possibility of his deposition in the event of heresy does not seem to be
sufficiently established as the express will of Christ
in the sources of Revelation. And on the practical
level, this possibility is not to be retained in the eyes
of prudence by reason of the harm it would cause to
the Church.
For the rest, Bishop Schneider’s reflections
repeat evidences of a historical (Arianism, Pope
Honorius) or theological (“the pope is not an
absolute monarch, who can do and say what he
likes, who can change doctrine or liturgy at his own
discretion”) nature. We gladly concede the material
exactitude of these elements, albeit with reserves as
to his comments on the different liturgical reforms.
But we cannot support the prelate’s fundamental argument that is too tainted with the new ecclesiology.
In its democratic and collegial orientation, this argument disregards the true nature of the papacy that
gives way to a sort of “Petrine office” or “ministry.”
The greatest credit goes to Archbishop Lefebvre for
defending the Church and her Tradition in the very
name of the papacy, that is to say, based on the first
principle of all ecclesiology, “Tu es Petrus.”

84

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January - February 2020

1

All the quotes are taken from Bishop Schneider’s text published on
Rorate Caeli.

2

See Jean-Marie Tillard, The Bishop of Rome (SPCK, 1983); Klaus
Schatz, Papal Primacy: From Its Origins to the Present (Michael
Glazier, 1996).

3

See the De Ecclesia and De Romano Pontifice treatises by
Johann Baptist Franzelin, Louis Billot, Domenico Palieri,
Timotheus Zapelena, and Joaquin Salaverri, as well as the various
authors of theological tradition who wrote on the issue: Juan de
Torquemada in his Summa de Ecclesia, Cajetan in his treatise
De Comparatione Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii, St. Robert
Bellarmine in his Controversies, Francisco Suarez in his Cursus
Theologicus.

4

Leo XIII, Encyclical Satis Cognitum (June 29, 1896).

5

Ibidem: “…quia in christiana republica causa efficiens unitatis
est Ecclesia romana.”

6

Cajetan, De Comparatione Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii.

7

St. Pius X, Motu Proprio Sacrorum Antistitum (Antimodernist
Oath), “de charismate veritatis certo.”

8

Vatican Council I, constitution Pastor Aeternus, chapter 4:
“Veritatis et fidei numquam deficientis charisma Petro ejusque
in hac cathedra successoribus divinitus collatum.” The “charism
of truth and unfailing faith granted by God to St. Peter and to all
his successors in this see,” the see of the Primacy of the bishop of
Rome.

9

Leo XIII, Encyclical Satis Cognitum (June 29, 1896).

10

It is a passage from a Homily entitled De Paenitentia and
attributed to St. Basil.

11

“Christus enim essentialiter petra inconcussa; Petrus vero per
petram.”

12

St. Leo the Great, Serm. 4, Ch. 2.

13

All of Cajetan’s considerations in his Apologia Tractatus de
Comparatione Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii, from chapters 1 to
4, develops this point.

14

Paragraph 12 of Lumen Gentium claims that “the entire body of
the faithful, anointed as they are by the Holy One, cannot err in
matters of belief. They manifest this special property by means
of the whole peoples’ supernatural discernment in matters of
faith.” This sense of the Faith is “aroused and sustained by the
Spirit of truth.” And even if “the guidance of the sacred teaching
authority” does play a certain role, it is not the proper principle of
the infallibility of the People.

15

Pius XII, encyclical Humani Generis, August 12, 1950. When we
say that the Magisterium is “living,” we are not speaking of the
present Magisterium as opposed to the past Magisterium but of the
Magisterium as a whole in relation to Revelation, which is over.

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The
Last
Word
Dear Reader,
The Society of Saint Pius X is a deeply Marian congregation. From the profound Marian life
of the founder, with a priesthood sharing in the hypostatic union which took place in the womb
of the Virgin Mother, through key Marian feasts punctuating its 50 years’ existence, to a major
front role in the apocalyptic battle raging against the Church, this “small band of Gedeon” is
definitely, like the rosary, a battling ram in the hands of the Immaculate.
Few people know that it was on October 13, 1969, that Archbishop Lefebvre himself welcomed the first batch of nine seminarians in Fribourg, the embryonic SSPX, a mere 50 days
before the New Mass started and war broke out against the Traditional Latin Mass. Rebecca
made sure her little Jacob got the patriarchal blessing in time.
In the northern hemisphere, seminarians always receive their black cassock on the feast of
the Purification, February 2, and the day chosen to become canonically a member of the SSPX
is December 8, feast of the Immaculate Conception. The members, “the seed of the Woman,”
thus publicly enter the enmity with the infernal serpent.
The Society has repeatedly consecrated itself publicly to the Mother of God, as a whole,
such as in Martigny in 1984, or at other times in all the districts, and has frequently answered
the call to go on pilgrimage: at Fatima in 1987, 1997, 2005 and 2017; and in Lourdes in 2008,
2014—the next one to be in 2020. We must mention, too, that it resurrected the traditional
branches of the Legion of Mary and of the Militia Immaculatae which reached 100,000 members in 2017.
Our superior general, with the advice of his counsel, has recently decreed that in the SSPX,
as of this year 2020, the two feasts of Our Lady of Sorrows (one in Lent, one on Sept. 15) will
be raised to the rank of First Class.
Lastly, when considering the worldwide persecutions Archbishop Lefebvre and his Society
went through, that too could be a symbolic and profoundly Marian touch. Listen to a saint
speaking of the apostles of the latter days: “In the eyes of the world they will be little and poor
and, like the heel, lowly in the eyes of all, downtrodden and crushed as is the heel by the other
parts of the body…” And the saint concludes: “In union with Mary, they will crush the head of
Satan with their heel, that is, their humility, and bring victory to Jesus Christ” (True Devotion,
n. 54).

Fr. Daniel Couture

The Society of Saint Pius X is an international priestly society of almost 700
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