How (or should) obey a liberal authority?
APRIL 7TH, 2018
Here are some reflections of a speaker on the forum of the French Resistance that we find interesting to submit to our readers as it is important for Catholics to understand how any practical collaboration is impossible with a liberal authority. It is fashionable today to make believers believe that Archbishop Lefebvre would have been in favor of a canonical agreement with the current authorities in Rome. Nothing more opposed to the thoughts and actions of Archbishop Lefebvre as we can read:
The accordists want to put the SSPX under the authority of Pope Francis because, they say, it is the legitimate authority and it is not moral to continuously resist a legitimate authority. Especially if this authority seems to be conducive to Tradition. If Francis, for example, proposes a delegation for marriage in Tradition, it would not be moral to refuse it and even, according to Econe's teachers, it would be a sign of schismatic tendency. Therefore, Menzingen generously accepts this delegation and declares (to the priors gathered at Flavigny) that they will have to refuse to marry the faithful who do not want this jurisdiction / delegation.
To avoid frightening the faithful who did not expect to find themselves at the ball of the Roman modernists (especially in the context of weddings), the agreement will reassure them: "We obey what is legitimate and we refuse what does not is not. " The question then arises: Is it moral to put oneself under the authority of a liberal on a case-by-case basis? Is it possible ? Is it legitimate to sort out between the good and the bad orders of a declared liberal?
It is well to remember that liberalism is not a simple mistake, or heresy banal: it is the worst of heresies, the most dangerous that the Church had to face. This is what Archbishop Lefebvre said to the seminarians on December 20, 1984, about the Liberals:
Quote:
"This
is what makes this kind of double face that the popes have now.It was
said very explicitly of Paul VI, but it can also be said of John Paul
II.Double face.So at times , Catholic face: - But if, look, the pope is
traditional, he does this, he does that ... And then after there is the
other face, then there is the ecumenism, there is the religious freedom,
the Human Rights and all that ...
So how to reconcile all this? How do they reconcile all this in their minds, in their being? ... That is why Pope Pius IX dared to say that the worst enemies of the Church were the liberal Catholics. He is very hard, Pope Pius IX. You have that in the quotes in the little book on "Liberal Catholicism" of Father Roussel. You have many quotes from Pope Pius IX about Catholics, quotes that are not found in official Pie IX acts. He took them in Roman documents, of course, and that is very well with Pope Pius IX, but they are documents that can not be found, which are difficult to find elsewhere. He is very very hard on Liberal Catholics. And we understand - while not saying that they are all excommunicated, that they are all heretics, No ... He could have said, Pope Pius IX, he did not say: All liberal Catholics are heretics! All liberal Catholics are excommunicated! no !…But they are the worst enemies of the Church , so he should still excommunicate them and say that they are schismatic ... No! ... because, precisely, they are always on the fringe, sometimes they affirm their Catholic faith, and then they destroy the Catholic faith in their actions. They are common with the enemies of the Church ...
There is nothing worse than that! This is the worst misfortune that the Church can have! this kind of continual betrayal, of continual equilibrium ... "
So how to reconcile all this? How do they reconcile all this in their minds, in their being? ... That is why Pope Pius IX dared to say that the worst enemies of the Church were the liberal Catholics. He is very hard, Pope Pius IX. You have that in the quotes in the little book on "Liberal Catholicism" of Father Roussel. You have many quotes from Pope Pius IX about Catholics, quotes that are not found in official Pie IX acts. He took them in Roman documents, of course, and that is very well with Pope Pius IX, but they are documents that can not be found, which are difficult to find elsewhere. He is very very hard on Liberal Catholics. And we understand - while not saying that they are all excommunicated, that they are all heretics, No ... He could have said, Pope Pius IX, he did not say: All liberal Catholics are heretics! All liberal Catholics are excommunicated! no !…But they are the worst enemies of the Church , so he should still excommunicate them and say that they are schismatic ... No! ... because, precisely, they are always on the fringe, sometimes they affirm their Catholic faith, and then they destroy the Catholic faith in their actions. They are common with the enemies of the Church ...
There is nothing worse than that! This is the worst misfortune that the Church can have! this kind of continual betrayal, of continual equilibrium ... "
Archbishop Lefebvre, following the good popes, sees very well the frightening malice of the liberals because they are not classic heretics. They are always on the edge, elusive. It is understandable why Archbishop Lefebvre took his practical distance from the liberal authorities of Rome even if they could sometimes give the appearance of a certain attachment to tradition.
This practical good sense of the archbishop with regard to the liberals is no longer that of the current theorists of Menzingen and its seminaries since one no longer fears the liberals (by resemblance?) Nor to put oneself under the authority of the worst enemies of God and the Church.
Can we then put ourselves under their authority on a case by case basis? Here again Archbishop Lefebvre has, in practice, progressively removed the small flock of good Catholics away from modernist miasmas in Rome. He did not deny them a certain authority, but he saw clearly that these Roman modernists used only their authority to do evil and absorb the small rest of Catholics in the modernist mass. He knew it well but there were liberal tendencies around him (abbot Schmidbberger for example) and he wanted to manifest this liberal malice to the less convinced until 1988.
This is what he said to seminarians in June 1979
Quote:
"But
we can not separate ourselves from Rome, from the true Rome, and we
must try, it seems to me, to try to convince these liberals of their
liberalism and try to prevent them from applying their liberalism and
the consequences of their liberalism. and the liberal reforms they have
made We must do everything possible to limit the damage, even by going
to talk to them, trying by all means to limit the damage, try to convert
if possible."
This practical distance from the liberal world of Rome has been progressively and logically made as liberalism is radically opposed to anti-liberalism. Modernist Rome was first established on the conciliar principles defined at the council and the more the liberals legislated after the council, the more Archbishop Lefebvre distanced himself from these people. And if he went to Rome, it certainly was not to beg for a privilege in a liberal setting but to manifest Catholic truth to authorities blinded by their reconciliation with the apostate world.
This is what Archbishop Lefebvre already said in 1975 to seminarians about the authority that should normally give life and not death.
Quote:
"The
authority of any person must always contribute to life and never to
death, because to contribute to death, to contribute to the diminution,
to the suppression of society, to a lack of fulfillment of life in
society, all this is a work of death and therefore goes against the
authority that we have.The authority is made for life.Therefore it is
sad to note that since a few years, authority uses the power it has, not
to develop life in the Church, but to spread death There is no right to
obey the laws of death precisely, like the state of abortion, for
example, the state does not have the right to make laws of this kind
that are laws of death.There it is clear, laws of assassination ... it
is against his very principle, against his own authority.in the same
way, we can say that, in a certain way, that the laws which are made,
which we absolutely want to put into practice in the Church since a few
years, especially since the council, are laws of death, we can say a
spiritual abortion. "
After such an analysis of the mechanism of liberal authority by Archbishop Lefebvre, how can we understand that those who claim to be his spiritual sons can today force the small herd of Catholics to accept being under the authority (even punctual) of those who give death to souls and to the Church?
Mystery ... of iniquity.
Archbishop Lefebvre insists on the necessity (even the obligation) to resist a deviant authority. The reason is precisely that deviant authority destroys its own authority. A liberal pope destroys the papacy. Those who resist his deviance are therefore the guarantors of this authority. If Bishop Fellay and his henchmen no longer want to resist a pontifical authority that constantly deviates, they return to the current and participate in the destruction of the pope's authority with the other liberals. Archbishop Lefebvre therefore makes resistance to a deviant authority a survival principle for any society:
Quote:
"It's
clear, it's obvious. It is a general principle, which is not special to
the Church, which is applicable for all authority, of course. When the
government orders doctors to do abortions, it has no right to obedience.
It's obvious. "
What does Archbishop Lefebvre propose to us when an authority abuses its authority to distance us from Tradition? Archbishop Lefebvre gives the answer to the seminarians. It must be believed that it has been forgotten by many today:
Quote:
(22/02/1979)
"But I would say to the extent that those who have authority in the
Church continue the Church of yesterday, we fully agree, we continue
with them - but we do not recognize it not in this attitude and in these
liberal, Protestant and modernist convictions, so we can not accept all
that in the recent reform is inspired by these principles, such as the
new catechisms, the new catechesis, the retraining that replaces the
retreats, the liturgical reform inspired by a false ecumenism, the
reform of the public law of the Church inspired by a false religious
liberty The betrayal of the Church by its clerics, its liberal
Catholics, bears bitter fruits which the whole world witnesses, some of
whom rejoice and others suffer cruelly.
In practice, what will we do?
We keep as a rule of our faith the symbol of Nicaea, the Vulgate, all the dogmatic Councils, the Theological Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas and all its theological principles and all the works which faithfully render its doctrine, the catechism of the Council of Trent and the catechisms inspired by it, that of Saint Pius X and Cardinal Gaspari, for example, and as a rule of our liturgy, the last Roman missal edited by John XXIII in 1962, the last pontifical published before the Second Vatican Council, the last a ritual published before the Second Vatican Council and the Roman Breviary also published just before the Second Vatican Council with the psalms of the old version. "
In practice, what will we do?
We keep as a rule of our faith the symbol of Nicaea, the Vulgate, all the dogmatic Councils, the Theological Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas and all its theological principles and all the works which faithfully render its doctrine, the catechism of the Council of Trent and the catechisms inspired by it, that of Saint Pius X and Cardinal Gaspari, for example, and as a rule of our liturgy, the last Roman missal edited by John XXIII in 1962, the last pontifical published before the Second Vatican Council, the last a ritual published before the Second Vatican Council and the Roman Breviary also published just before the Second Vatican Council with the psalms of the old version. "
Archbishop Lefebvre does not speak of agreement. He speaks only of fidelity to Tradition. Bishop Fellay wants an agreement but he will lose Fidelity.