APPLIED TO THE NOVUS ORDO: Why the Catholic Church Condemns Attendance at False Worship
by Fr. Michael Muller, 1874
LEFEBVRE QUOTES & FR HESSE VIDEOS ON THE MATTER INCLUDED
What is attendance at false worship?
It is to assist at the religious worship of heretics.
To worship God according to a rite contrary to all precepts of the Gospel is a false and unlawful worship of God. Hence it would be a grievous sin for a Catholic to worship God according to the ceremonial laws of the Jews, for though they were prescribed by God for the Jews before the coming of Christ, yet they were abolished by Christ in the new law.
It is also a false and unlawful worship of God to adopt a new religion in opposition to the doctrine of the true Church of Jesus Christ, the Roman Catholic Church, and assist at the religious worship of such a false religion. Hence, even if a Catholic despises in his heart such a false religion and worship, it is unlawful for him to play the organ, or to sing, or to discharge the office of sacristan, in Jewish or Protestant temples during their false worship, or to compose hymns or music for the same, or to ring the bell for calling the people together, or to contribute money towards the erection of temples for false worship, or to call a Protestant minister for the performance of some religious rites, as, for instance, the rites of marriage or baptism, or funeral, etc.; or to take Protestant children, or accompany grown persons, to Protestant Sunday-schools or church and stay with them, during their religous worship. Any such act is strictly forbidden by the law of God and of the Church, because it is a real communication and formal co-operation in a false worship, and a real approval of it. "No one," say the Fathers of the Fourth Council of Carthage (in 398), "must either pray, or sing psalms with heretics; and whosoever shall communicate with those who are cut off from the communion of the Church, whether clergyman or layman, let him be excommunicated." Such was the language of the Church in all ages.
Pope Paul IV. wrote to the Catholics in England : "We are forced to admonish and to conjure you, that on no account you go to the churches of heretics, or hear their sermons or join in their rites, lest ye incur the wrath of God; for it is not lawful for you to do such things without dishonoring God and hurting your own souls." In consequence of such authoritative decision, the Catholic pastors of England and Scotland have made most strict prohibitions of all such communication by their special regulations.
Here one may say: The reason why I play the organ, or sing, or officiate as sacristan, etc., in a Protestant church, is because I get a good pay which enables me to support my family. I answer: What you do is a grievous violation of the first commandment. It is never allowed to commit a mortal sin in order to acquire the means of support. Alas! that there are so many people who make a living by unlawful means!" But the bishop, or parish priest has given me permission to play the organ, to sing, etc., in the Protestant church," says another one. I answer: Neither any priest nor bishop, nay, not even the Pope, can give you permission to violate any of the commandments.
"But I am well instructed in my religion," says another; "I can see no harm in what I do in the Protestant church." I answer: I doubt what you say. If you were well instructed, you would know that attendance at false worship is a mortal sin, and that this sin is still greater for him who plays, or sings, at it, or renders any other kind of service for it. And do you see no harm in committing a mortal sin? Do you see no harm in the great scandal you give to those Catholics who know of it, and to the Protestants, whom by your playing and singing, etc., you confirm in the belief that their religion is as good as the Catholic religion?
St. Hermenegild, the son of Leovigild, king of Spain, became a convert to the Catholic faith. When his father, who was addicted to the Arian heresy, heard of it, he became quite enraged, and put his son in a frightful dungeon, where he made him suffer most cruel torments. The holy martyr wrote to his father: "I avow your goodness to me has always been very great. I will preserve, to the last moment of my life, the respect, duty, and tenderness which I owe you. But is it possible that you should wish me to like worldly greatness better than my salvation? I value the crown as nothing. I am ready to lose sceptre and life, too, rather than abandon the divine truth."
The prison was a school of virtue to this great martyr. He clothed himself in sack-cloth, and performed other bodily penances in addition to the hardships of his prison. He offered up to God many fervent prayers to obtain sufficient strength and courage to remain faithful in confessing the truth and dying for it.
The solemnity of Easter being come, the perfidious father sent, in the night, an Arian bishop with the message to his son that, if he received communion from the hand of that prelate, he would be received into favor again. Hermenegild, however, rejected the proposal with indignation, reproaching the messenger with the impiety of his sect, as if he had been at full liberty. When the bishop returned to the Arian king with this account, the furious father, seeing the faith of his son proof against all his endeavors to make him give up the Catholic religion, sent soldiers with orders to kill him. They entered the prison and found the saint fearless and ready to receive the stroke of death. They cleaved his head with an axe, and scattered his brains on the floor. (Butler's Lives of the Saints, April 13.)
Quotes from Archbishop Lefebvre:
ON THE NEW MASS
-“I will never celebrate the Mass according to the new rite, even under threat of ecclesiastical penalties and I will never advise anyone positively to participate actively in such a Mass." (Conference April 11, 1990)
-“The current Pope and bishops no longer hand down Our Lord Jesus Christ, but rather a sentimental, superficial, charismatic religiosity through which, as a general rule, the true grace of the Holy Ghost no longer passes. This new religion is not the Catholic religion; it is sterile, incapable of sanctifying society and the family.” (Spiritual Journey, p. ix)
-“It is the new Mass in itself. It is not the priest who is saying it. It is not because he says it piously or anything that the new rite changes. It doesn’t change anything in the rite of the Mass. It is obvious that this new rite is a rite that has been made only to draw us closer to the Protestants. That is clear! (April 11, 1990)
-“This Mass is poisoned, it is bad and it leads to the loss of faith little by little. We are clearly obliged to reject it.” (The Mass of All Times, p. 353)
-“It must be understood immediately that we do not hold to the absurd idea that if the New Mass is valid, we are free to assist at it. The Church has always forbidden the faithful to assist at the Masses of heretics and schismatics even when they are valid. It is clear that no one can assist at sacrilegious Masses or at Masses which endanger our faith.…All these innovations are authorized. One can fairly say without exaggeration that most of these [new] Masses are sacrilegious acts which pervert the Faith by diminishing it. The de-sacralization is such that these Masses risk the loss of their supernatural character, their mysterium fidei; they would then be no more than acts of natural religion. These New Masses are not only incapable of fulfilling our Sunday obligation, but are such that we must apply to them the canonical rules which the Church customarily applies to communicatio in sacris with Orthodox Churches and Protestant sects.” (The New Mass and the Pope, November, 8, 1979)
-“… this [new] rite is bad! Is bad, is bad. And the reason why this rite is bad in itself, is because it is poisoned. It is a poisoned rite! Mr. Salleron says it very well, here: "It is not a choice between two rites that could be good. It is a choice between a Catholic Rite and a rite that is practically a neighbor to Protestantism,” and thus, which attacks our Faith, the Catholic Faith! So, it is out of the question to encourage people to go to Mass in the new rite, because slowly, even without realizing it, they end up ecumenist! It’s strange, but it's like that. It is a fact. Then, ask them questions on ecumenism, on what they think of the relations with other religions and you will see! They are all ecumenist. For the priest himself, the fact of saying this mass and celebrating it in a constant manner, even without thinking about anything, about its origin, or why it was made, turns him and the people who assist at it ecumenist.” (Conference, April 11, 1990)
-"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, August29, 1976)
-“The radical and extensive changes made in the Roman Rite of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and their resemblance to the modifications made by Luther oblige Catholics who remain loyal to their faith to question the validity of this new rite.”(Écône, February 2, 1977)
-“Your perplexity takes perhaps the following form: may I assist at a sacrilegious Mass which is nevertheless valid, in the absence of any other, in order to satisfy my Sunday obligation? The answer is simple: these Masses cannot be the object of an obligation; we must moreover apply to them the rules of moral theology and Canon Law as regards the participation or the attendance at an action which endangers the faith or may be sacrilegious. The New Mass, even when said with piety and respect for the liturgical rules, is subject to the same reservations since it is impregnated with the spirit of Protestantism. It bears within it a poison harmful to the faith.” (An Open Letter to Confused Catholics, Ch. 4)
-“The current problem of the Mass is an extremely serious problem for the Holy Church. I believe that if the dioceses and seminaries and works that are currently done are struck with sterility, it is because the recent deviations drew upon us the divine curse. All the efforts that are made to hang on to what is being lost, to reorganize, reconstruct, rebuild, all that is struck with sterility, because we no longer have the true source of holiness which is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Profaned as it is, it no longer gives grace, it no longer makes grace pass.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, August 1972, priestly retreat)
-“We must not forget that the conciliar reforms of the liturgy, the reforms of the Bible, the changes in the internal structure of the Church, of the constitution of the Church—all these things are a result of the ecumenical spirit. That is clear, since Protestants were present for the changes in the Mass—six Protestant ministers were photographed with Pope Paul VI who thanked them for having come to participate in the liturgical commission, which transformed our Catholic Mass! Everything was done in this ecumenical spirit: liturgical reforms, catechetical reforms, an ecumenical Bible—which is sold in the bookstore at the Vatican. There was then, a considerable Protestant influence.” (Conference in Germany, October 29, 1984)
-“…if they are going to the New Mass—slowly, slowly they change their mind and become, slowly, slowly Protestant. It is very dangerous to go to the New Mass regularly, each week, because the New Mass is not some accidental change, but it is a whole orientation, a new definition of the Mass. It has not the same definition as the True Mass.” (Interview, St. Michael’s Mission, Atlanta, April 27, 1986)
“… So, if someone asks me: “I only have Mass of St. Pius V once a month. So what should I do on the other Sundays? Should I go to the New Mass if I do not have the Mass of St. Pius V? ...
I reply: Just because something is poisoned, obviously it is not going to poison you if you go on the odd occasion, but to go regularly on Sunday like that, little by little the notions will be lost, the dogmas will diminish. They will become accustomed to this ambiance which is no longer Catholic and they will very slowly lose the Faith in the Real Presence, lose the Faith in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and have a spirituality, since the prayers are changed and they have modified everything, in the sense of another spirituality. It is a new conception of Christian spirituality. There is no longer any ascetical effort, no longer a combat against sin, no longer a spiritual combat. There is a great need to combat against our own tendencies, against our faults, against everything which leads us to sin. So I would say to them: Listen, I cannot advise you to go to something which is evil. Myself, I would not go because I would not want to take in this atmosphere. I cannot. It is stronger than me. I cannot go. I would not go. So I advise you not to go." (Spiritual Conference at Econe, June 25, 1981)
“The consequences of this state of mind or spirit spread within the Church, inside the Church, are deplorable, and are ruining and sapping the spiritual vitality of the Church. In conscience, all we can do is turn priests and faithful away from using the Novus Ordo Missae if we wish that the complete and whole Catholic Faith remains still living.” (Letter to John Paul II, April 5, 1983 - Archbishop Lefebvre, Conference #1, St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, April 24, 1983)
“…that the evil in the New Mass is truly intrinsic, in the text … and not only something purely extrinsic, [in the abuses], this is certain. Precisely by this general effect which diminishes the proclamation of our faith, this diminution is present everywhere, in the words and in the actions. They wanted to be ecumenical to such a point, to bring themselves closer to the Protestants in order to pray with them, that in the end they no longer affirm the Faith. And that is very grave. This diminution is excessively grave for our faith, how can it be otherwise? … Really, in conscience, I cannot advise anyone to attend this Mass, it is not possible.” (Conference at Econe, June 24, 1981)
