Archbishop Lefebvre: "Vatican II is the French Revolution in the Church."
The parallel I have drawn between
the crisis in the Church and the French Revolution is not simply
a metaphorical one. The influence of the philosophes of
the eighteenth century, and of the upheaval that they produced
in the world, has continued down to our times. Those who have
injected that poison into the Church admit it to themselves. It
was Cardinal Suenens who exclaimed, “Vatican II is the French
Revolution in the Church” and among other unguarded declarations
he added “One cannot understand the French or the Russian revolutions
unless one knows something of the old regimes which they brought
to an end… It is the same in church affairs: a reaction can only
be judged in relation to the state f things that preceded it”.
What preceded, and what he considered due for abolition, was that
wonderful hierarchical construction culminating in the Pope, the
Vicar of Christ on earth. He continued: “The Second Vatican Council
marked the end of an epoch; and if we stand back from it a little
more we see it marked the end of a series of epochs, the end of
an age”.
Père Congar, one of the artisans
of the reforms, spoke likewise: “The Church has had, peacefully,
its October Revolution.” Fully aware of what he was saying, he
remarked “The Declaration on Religious Liberty states the opposite
of the Syllabus.” I could quote numbers of admissions of this
sort. In 1976 Fr. Gelineau, one of the party-leaders at the National
Pastoral and Liturgical Centre removed all illusions from those
who would like to see in the Novus Ordo something merely a little
different from the rite which hitherto had been universally celebrated,
but in no way fundamentally different: “The reform decided on
by the Second Vatican Council was the signal for the thaw… Entire
structures have come crashing down… Make no mistake about it.
To translate is not to say the same thing with other words. It
is to change the form. If the form changes, the rite changes.
If one element is changed, the totality is altered.., of must
be said, without mincing words, the Roman rite we used to know
exists no more. It has been destroyed.”8
The Catholic liberals have undoubtedly
established a revolutionary situation. Here is what we read in
the book written by one of them, Monsignor Prelot,9
a senator for the Doubs region of France. “We had struggled for
a century and a half to bring our opinions to prevail within the
Church and had not succeeded. Finally, there came Vatican Il and
we triumphed. From then on the propositions and principles of
liberal Catholicism have been definitively and officially accepted
by Holy Church.”
It is through the influence of this
liberal Catholicism that the Revolution has been introduced under
the guise of pacifism and universal brotherhood. The errors and
false principles of modern man have penetrated the Church and
contaminated the clergy thanks to liberal popes themselves, and
under cover of Vatican II.
It is time to come to the facts.
To begin with, I can say that in 1962 I was not opposed to the
holding of a General Council. On the contrary, I welcomed it with
great hopes. As present proof here is a letter I sent out in 1963
to the Holy Ghost Fathers and which has been published in one
of my previous books.10
I wrote: “We may say without hesitation, that certain liturgical
reforms have been needed, and it is to be hoped that the Council
will continue in this direction.” I recognized that a renewal
was indispensable to bring an end to a certain sclerosis due to
a gap which had developed between prayer, confined to places of
worship, and the world of action-schools, the professions and
public life. I was nominated a member of the Central Preparatory
Commission by the pope and I took an assiduous and enthusiastic
part in its two years of work. The central commission had the
responsibility of checking and examining all the preparatory schemas
which came from the specialist commissions. I was in a good position
therefore to know what had been done, what was to be examined,
and what was to be brought before the assembly.
This work was carried out very conscientiously
and meticulously. I still possess the seventy-two preparatory
schemas; in them the Church’s doctrine is absolutely orthodox.
They were adapted in a certain manner to our times, but with great
moderation and discretion.
Everything was ready for the date
announced and on 11th October, 1962, the Fathers took
their places in the nave of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. But
then an occurrence took place which had not been foreseen by the
Holy See. From the very first days, the Council was besieged by
the progressive forces. We experienced it, felt it; and when I
say we, I mean the majority of the Council Fathers at that moment.
We had the impression that something
abnormal was happening and this impression was rapidly confirmed;
fifteen days after the opening session not one of the seventy-two
schemas remained. All had been sent back, rejected, thrown into
the waste-paper basket. This happened in the following way. It
had been laid down in the Council rules that two-thirds of the
votes would be needed to reject a preparatory schema. Now when
it was put to the vote there were 60% against the schemas and
40% in favor. Consequently the opposition had not obtained the
two-thirds, and normally the Council would have proceeded on the
basis of the preparations made.
It was then that a powerful, a very
powerful organization showed its hand, set up by the Cardinals
from those countries bordering the Rhine, complete with a well-organized
secretariat. They went to find the Pope, John XXIII, and said
to him: “This is inadmissible, Most Holy Father; they want us
to consider schemas which do not have the majority,” and their
plea was accepted. The immense work that had been found accomplished
was scrapped and the assembly found itself empty-handed, with
nothing ready. What chairman of a board meeting, however small
the company, would agree to carry on without an agenda and without
documents? Yet that is how the Council commenced.
Then there was the affair of the
Council commissions which had to be appointed. This was a difficult
problem; think of the bishops arriving from all countries of the
world and suddenly finding themselves together in St. Peter’s.
For the most part, they did not know one another; they knew three
or four colleagues and a few others by reputation out of the 2400
who were there. How could they know which of the Fathers were
the most suitable to be members of the commission for the priesthood,
for example, or for the liturgy, or for canon law?
Quite lawfully, Cardinal Ottaviani
distributed to each of them the list of the members of the pre-conciliar
commissions, people who in consequence had been selected by the
Holy See and had already worked on the subjects to be debated.
That could help them to choose without there being any obligation
and it was certainly to be hoped that some of these experienced
men would appear in the commissions.
But then an outcry was raised. I
don’t need to give the name of the Prince of the Church who stood
up and made the following speech: “Intolerable pressure is being
exerted upon the Council by giving names. The Council Fathers
must be given their liberty. Once again the Roman Curia is seeking
to impose its own members.”
This crude outspokenness was rather
a shock, and the session was adjourned. That afternoon the secretary,
Mgr. Felici announced, “The Holy Father recognizes that it would
perhaps be better for the bishops’ conferences to meet and draw
up the lists.”
The bishops’ conferences at that
time were still embryonic: they prepared as best they could the
lists they had been asked for without, anyway, having been able
to meet as they ought, because they had only been given twenty-four
hours. But those who have woven this plot had theirs all ready
with individuals specially chosen from various countries. They
were able to forestall the conferences and in actual fact they
obtained a large majority. The result was that the commissions
were packed with two-thirds of the members belonging to the progressivist
faction and the other third nominated by the Pope.
New schemas were rapidly brought
out, of a tendency markedly different from the earlier ones. I
should one day like to publish them both so that one can make
the comparison and see what was the Church's doctrine on the eve
of the Council.
Anyone who has experience of either
civil or clerical meetings will understand the situation in which
the Fathers found themselves. In these new schemas, although one
could modify a few odd phrases or a few propositions by means
of amendments, one could not change their essentials. The consequences
would be serious. A text which is biased to begin with can never
be entirely corrected. It retains the imprint of whoever drafted
it and the thoughts that inspired it. The Council from then on
was slanted. A third element contributed to steering it in a
liberal direction. In place of the ten presidents of the Council
who had been nominated by John XXIII, Pope Paul VI appointed for
the last two sessions four moderators, of whom the least one can
say is that they were not chosen among the most moderate of the
cardinals. Their influence was decisive for the majority of the
Council Fathers.
The liberals constituted a minority,
but an active and organized minority, supported by a galaxy of
modemist theologians amongst whom we find all the names who since
then have laid down the law, names like Leclerc, Murphy, Congar,
Rahner, Küng, Schillebeeckx, Besret, Cardonnel, Chenu, etc. And
we must remember the enormous output of printed matter by IDOC,
the Dutch Information Center, subsidized by the German and Dutch
Bishops’ Conferences which all the time was urging the Fathers
to act in the manner expected of them by international opinion.
It created a sort of psychosis, a feeling that one must not disappoint
the expectations of the world which is hoping to see the Church
come round to its views. So the instigators of this movement found
it easy to demand the immediate adaptation of the Church to modern
man, that is to say, to the man who wants to free himself of all
restraint. They made the most of a Church deemed to be sclerotic,
out of date, and powerless, beating their breasts for the faults
of their predecessors. Catholics were shown to be more guilty
than the Protestants and Orthodox for their divisions of times
past; they should beg pardon of their “separated brethren” present
in Rome, where they had been invited in large numbers to take
part in the activities.
The Traditional Church having been
culpable in its wealth and in its triumphalism, the Council Fathers
felt guilty themselves at not being in the world and at not being
of the world; they were already beginning to feel ashamed of their
episcopal insignia; soon they would be ashamed to appear wearing
the cassock.
This atmosphere of liberation would
soon spread to all areas. The spirit of collegiality was to be
the mantle of Noah covering up the shame of wielding personal
authority, so contrary to the mind of twentieth century man, shall
we say, liberated man! Religious freedom, ecumenism, theological
research, and the revising of canon law would attenuate the triumphalism
of a Church which declared itself to be the sole Ark of Salvation.
As one speaks of people being ashamed of their poverty, so now
we have ashamed bishops, who could be influenced by giving them
a bad conscience. It is a technique that has been employed in
all revolutions. The consequences are visible in many places in
the annals of the Council. Read again the beginning of the schema,
“ The Church in the Modern World,” on the changes in the world
today, the accelerated movement of history, the new conditions
affecting religious life, and the predominance of science and
technology. Who can fail to see in these passages an expression
of the purest liberalism?
We would have had a splendid council
by taking Pope Pius XII for our master on the subject. I do not
think there is any problem of the modern world and of current
affairs that he did not resolve, with all his knowledge, his theology
and his holiness. He gave almost definitive solutions, having
truly seen things in the light of faith.
But things could not be seen so when
they refused to make it a dogmatic council. Vatican II was a pastoral
Council; John XXIII said so, Paul VI repeated it. During the course
of the sittings we several times wanted to define a concept; but
we were told: “We are not here to define dogma and philosophy;
we are here for pastoral purposes.” What is liberty? What
is human dignity? What is collegiality? We are reduced to analyzing
the statements indefinitely in order to know what they mean, and
we only come up with approximations because the terms are ambiguous.
And this was not through negligence or by chance. Fr. Schillebeeckx
admitted it: “We have used ambiguous terms during the Council
and we know how we shall interpret them afterwards.” Those people
knew what they were doing. All the other Councils that have been
held during the course of the centuries were dogmatic. All have
combatted errors. Now God knows what errors there are to be combatted
in our times! A dogmatic council would have filled a great need.
I remember Cardinal Wyszinsky telling us: “You must prepare a
schema upon Communism; if there is a grave error menacing the
world today it is indeed that. If Pius XII believed there was
need of an encyclical on communism, it would also be very useful
for us, meeting here in plenary assembly, to devote a schema to
this question.”
Communism, the most monstrous error
ever to emerge from the mind of Satan, has official access to
the Vatican. Its world-wide revolution is particularly helped
by the official non-resistance of the Church and also by the frequent
support it finds there, in spite of the desperate warnings of
those cardinals who have suffered in several of the Eastern countries.
The refusal of this pastoral council to condemn it solemnly is
enough in itself to cover it with shame before the whole of history,
when one thinks of the tens of millions of martyrs, of the Christians
and dissidents scientifically de-personalized in psychiatric hospitals
and used as human guinea-pigs in experiments. Yet the Council
kept quiet. We obtained the signatures of 450 bishops calling
for a declaration against Communism. They were left forgotten
in a drawer. When the spokesman for Gaudium et Spes replied to
our questioning, he told us, “There have been two petitions calling
for a condemnation of Communism.” “Two!” we cried, “there are
more than 400 of them!” “Really, I know nothing about them.” On
making inquiries, they were found, but it was too late.
These events I was involved in. It
is I who carried the signatures to Mgr. Felici, the Council Secretary,
accompanied by Mgr. de Proenca Sigaud, Archbishop of Diamantina:
and I am obliged to say there occurred things that are truly inadmissible.
I do not say this in order to condemn the Council; and I am not
unaware that there is here a cause of confusion for a great many
Catholics. After all, they think the Council was inspired by
the Holy Ghost.
Not necessarily. A non-dogmatic,
pastoral council is not a recipe for infallibility. When, at the
end of the sessions, we asked Cardinal Felici, “Can you not give
us what the theologians call the ‘theological note of the Council?’”
He replied, “We have to distinguish according to the schemas and
the chapters those which have already been the subject of dogmatic
definitions in the past; as for the declarations which have a
novel character, we have to make reservations.”
Vatican II therefore is not a Council
like others and that is why we have the right to judge it, with
prudence and reserve. I accept in this Council and in the reforms
all that is in full concordance with Tradition. The Society I
have founded is ample proof. Our seminaries in particular comply
with the wishes expressed by the Council and with the ratio fundamentalis
of the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education.
But it is impossible to maintain
it is only the later applications of the Council that are at fault.
The rebellion of the clergy, the defiance of pontifical authority,
all the excesses in the liturgy and the new theology, and the
desertion of the churches, have they nothing to do with the Council,
as some have recently asserted? Let us be honest: they are its
fruits!
In saying this I realize that I merely
increase the worry and perplexity of my readers. But, however,
among all this tumult a light has shone forth capable of reducing
to nought the attempts of the world to bring Christ’s Church
to an end. On June 30, 1968 the Holy Father published his Profession
of Faith. It is an act which from the dogmatic point of view is
more important than all the Council.
This Credo, drawn up by the successor
of Peter to affirm the faith of Peter, was an event of quite exceptional
solemnity. When the Pope rose to pronounce it the Cardinals rose
also and all the crowd wished to do likewise, but he made them
sit down again. He wanted to be alone, as Vicar of Christ, to
proclaim his Credo and he did it with the most solemn of words,
in the name of the Blessed Trinity, before the holy angels and
before all the Church. In consequence, he has made an act which
pledges the faith of the Church.
We have thereby the consolation and
the confidence of feeling that the Holy Ghost has not abandoned
us. We can say that the Act of Faith that sprang from the First
Vatican Council has found its other resting point in the profession
of faith of Paul VI.
8
Demain la liturgie, ed. du Cerf.
9 Le
Catholicisme Libéral, 1969
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre On the Apostasy of Vatican II & Conciliar Church
“…we do not belong to this religion. We do not accept this new religion. We belong to the old religion, the Catholic religion, not to this universal religion as it is called today. It is no longer the Catholic religion…” (Sermon, June 29, 1976)
We have been suspended a divinis by the Conciliar Church and from the Conciliar Church, to which we have no wish to belong.” (July 29 1976, Reflections on the Suspension a divinis)
“The Church which affirms such errors is both schismatic and heretical. This Conciliar Church is therefore not Catholic.” (July 29, 1976, Reflections on the Suspension a divinis)
“To
whatever extent pope, bishops, priests or faithful adhere to this new
Church, they separate themselves from the Catholic Church.” (July 29, 1976, Reflections on the Suspension a divinis)
“I
should be very happy to be excommunicated from this Conciliar Church…
It is a Church that I do not recognize. I belong to the Catholic
Church.” (Interview July 30 1976, published in Minute, no. 747)
“This
Council represents, in our view and in the view of the Roman
authorities, a new Church which they call the Conciliar Church.” (Le Figaro, August 4, 1976)
“To
whatever extent the pope departed from…tradition he would become
schismatic, he would breach with the Church. Theologians such as Saint
Bellarmine, Cajetan, Cardinal Journet and many others have studied this
possibility. So it is not something inconceivable.” (Le Figaro, August 4, 1976)
“Heresy,
schism, ipso facto excommunication, invalidity of election are so many
reasons why a pope might in fact never have been pope or might no longer
be one. In this, obviously very exceptional case, the Church would be
in a situation similar to that which prevails after the death of a
Pontiff.” (Le Figaro, August 4, 1976)
“We
believe we can affirm, purely by internal and external criticism of
Vatican II, i.e. by analyzing the texts and studying the Council’s ins
and outs, that by turning its back on tradition and breaking with the
Church of the past, it is a schismatic council.” (Le Figaro, August 4, 1976)
“…a
grave problem confronts the conscience and the faith of all Catholics
since the beginning of Paul VI’s pontificate: how can a pope who is
truly successor of Peter, to whom the assistance of the Holy Ghost has
been promised, preside over the most radical and far-reaching
destruction of the Church ever known, in so short a time, beyond what
any heresiarch has ever achieved? This question must one day be
answered…” (Le Figaro, August 4, 1976)
“It is not we who are in schism but the Conciliar Church.” (Homily preached at Lille, August 29, 1976)
“This
union which liberal Catholics want between the Church and the
Revolution is an adulterous union – adulterous. This adulterous union
can only beget bastards. Where are these bastards? They are [the new]
rites. The [new] rite of Mass is a bastard rite. The sacraments are
bastard sacraments. We no longer know whether they are sacraments that
give grace. We no longer know if this Mass gives us the Body and the
Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. (…) The priests emerging from the
seminaries are bastard priests.” (Homily preached at Lille, August 29, 1976, before a crowd of some 12,000.)
1977
“The
question is therefore definitive: is Paul VI, has Paul VI ever been,
the successor of Peter? If the reply is negative: Paul VI has never
been, or no longer is, pope, our attitude will be that of sede vacante
periods, which would simplify the problem. Some theologians say that
this is the case, relying on the statements of theologians of the past,
approved by the Church, who have studied the problem of the heretical
pope, the schismatic pope or the pope who in practice abandons his
charge of supreme Pastor. It is not impossible that this hypothesis will
one day be confirmed by the Church.” (Ecône, February 24, 1977, Answers to Various Burning Questions)
“If
we think that this reformed liturgy is heretical and invalid, whether
because of modifications made in the matter and form or because of the
reformers’ intention inscribed in the new rite in opposition to the
intention of the catholic Church, evidently we cannot participate in
these reformed rites because we should be taking part in a sacrilegious
act. This opinion is founded on serious reasons…” (Ecône, February 24, 1977, Answers to Various Burning Questions)
(Homily, Ecône, September 18, 1977)
1978
“That
is why I beseech Your Eminence to …do everything in your power to get
us a Pope, a true Pope, successor of Peter, in line with his
predecessors, the firm and watchful guardian of the deposit of faith.
The…eighty-year-old cardinals have a strict right to present themselves
at the Conclave, and their enforced absence will necessarily raise the
question of the validity of the election” (Letter to an unnamed cardinal, August 8, 1978.)
1986
“…these
recent acts of the Pope and bishops, with protestants, Animists and Jews, are
they not an active participation in non-catholic worship as explained by Canon
Naz on Canon 1258§1? In which case I cannot see how it is possible to say that
the pope is not suspect of heresy, and if he continues, he is a heretic, a
public heretic. That is the teaching of the Church.” (Talk, March 30 and April
18, 1986, text published in The Angelus, July 1986)
Click Here To Read Sermon.
“You
know, for some time, many people, the sedevacantists, have been saying,
‘there is no more pope’. But I think that for me it was not yet the
time to say that, because it was not sure, it was not evident…” (Talk, March 30 and April 18, 1986, text published in The Angelus, July 1986)
“I
don’t know if the time has come to say that the pope is a heretic (…)
Perhaps after this famous meeting of Assisi, perhaps we must say that
the pope is a heretic, is apostate. Now I don’t wish yet to say it
formally and solemnly, but it seems at first sight that it is impossible
for a pope to be formally and publicly heretical. (…) So it is possible
we may be obliged to believe this pope is not pope.” (Talk, March 30 and April 18, 1986, text published in The Angelus, July 1986)
“It is possible we may be obliged to believe
this pope is not pope. For twenty years Mgr de Castro Mayer and I preferred to
wait…I think we are waiting for the famous meeting in Assisi, if God allows
it.” (Talk, March 30 and April 18, 1986, published in The Angelus, July 1986)
“Now some priests (even some priests in the Society) say that we Catholics need not worry about what is happening in the Vatican;
we have the true sacraments, the true Mass, the true doctrine, so why
worry about whether the pope is heretic or an impostor or whatever; it
is of no importance to us. But I think that is not true. If any man is
important in the Church it is the pope.” (Talk, March 30 and April 18, 1986, text published in The Angelus, July 1986)
“We consider as null…all the post-conciliar reforms, and all the acts of Rome accomplished in this impiety."
(Joint Declaration with Bishop de Castro Mayer following Assisi, December 2, 1986)
1987
“The
See of Peter and the posts of authority in Rome being occupied by
antichrists, the destruction of the Kingdom of Our Lord is being rapidly
carried out even within His Mystical Body here below (…) This is what
has brought down upon our heads persecution by the Rome of the
antichrists.” (Letter to the future bishops, 29 August 1987)
“It
is impossible for Rome to remain indefinitely outside Tradition. It’s
impossible… For the moment they are in rupture with their predecessors.
This is impossible. They are no longer in the Catholic Church.” (Retreat Conference, September 4, 1987, Ecône)
“Rome
has lost the Faith, my dear friends. Rome is in apostasy. These are
not words in the air. It is the truth. Rome is in apostasy… They have
left the Church… This is sure, sure, sure.” (Retreat Conference, September 4, 1987, Ecône)
1988
“So
we are [to be] excommunicated by Modernists, by people who have been
condemned by previous popes. So what can that really do? We are
condemned by men who are themselves condemned…” (Press conference, Ecône, June 15 1988)
“To
be publicly associated with the sanction [of excommunication] would be a
mark of honour and a sign of orthodoxy before the faithful, who have a
strict right to know that the priests they approach are not in communion
with a counterfeit Church…” (Open Letter to Cardinal Gantin, July 6, 1988, signed by 24 SSPX superiors, doubtless with Archbishop Lefebvre’s approval)
“We have
never wished to belong to this system that calls itself the Conciliar Church.
To be excommunicated by a decree of your eminence…would be the irrefutable
proof that we do not. We ask for nothing better than to be declared ex
communione…excluded from impious communion with infidels.” (Open Letter to
Cardinal Gantin, July 6, 1988, signed by 24 leading SSPX priests, doubtless
with Archbishop Lefebvre’s approval)
John Paul II “now continually diffuses the principles of a false religion, which has for its result a general apostasy.” (Preface to Giulio Tam’s Osservatore Romano 1990, contributed by the Archbishop just three weeks before his death)
Post-consecration
statement (Summer 1988), SSPX school Bitsche, Alsace-Lorraine: “the
archbishop stated, going even beyond even his 15th June press
conference, that those who had excommunicated him had themselves long
been excommunicated.” (Summary in the Counter-Reformation Association’s, News and Views, Candlemas 1996)
