Volume
1, Chapter 5
On the same day
that Mgr. Mamie wrote to Mgr. Lefebvre, 6 May 1975, the Commission
of Cardinals also pronounced their condemnation.
The complete
text of this condemnation is as follows:
Your Excellency,
It is in
the name of the Commission of Cardinals and by the express mandate
of the Holy Father that we write to you.
We remain
deeply grateful to you for enabling our recent discussions to
take place in such a fraternal atmosphere that on no occasion
did our differences of opinion compromise the profound and serene
communion which exists among us. But this only increases our sorrow
at the apparent intransigence of your views, with the consequences
that cannot but derive from them.
Our discussions
were concerned principally with your public Declaration published
in the review Itinéraires. It could not be otherwise in
view of the fact that the Declaration stated explicitly what the
Visitor to Ecône (Mgr. Descamps) had been unable to bring to light.
He suggested that we clear this up in a discussion with you.
Now such
a Declaration appears unacceptable to us on all points. It is
impossible to reconcile most of the affirmations contained in
this document with authentic fidelity to the Church, to the one
who is responsible for Her, and to the Council in which the mind
and will of the Church were expressed. It is inadmissible that
every individual should be invited to submit papal directives
to his own private judgment and decide for himself whether to
accept or reject them. This is nothing less than the customary
language of those sects which appeal to the popes of yesterday
in order to refuse obedience to the Pope of today.
Throughout
our conversations, our desire was to lead you, Your Excellency,
to recognize the cogency of such objections and to withdraw your
own affirmations. You told us that you found this impossible.
"If I had to rewrite this text," you said, "I would
write the same things."
Under such
circumstances the Commission was left with no alternative but
to pass on its absolutely unanimous conclusions to the Pope together
with the complete dossier of the affair so that he could judge
for himself. It is with the entire approval of His Holiness that
we communicate the following decisions to you:
1) "A
letter will be dispatched to Mgr. Mamie according him the right
to withdraw the approval which his predecessor gave to the Fraternity
and to its statutes." This has been done in a letter from
His Excellency Cardinal Tabera, Prefect of the Congregation for
Religious.
2) Once it
is suppressed, the Society "no longer having a juridical
basis, its foundations, and notably the Seminary at Ecône, lose
by the same act the right to existence."
3) It is
obvious - we are invited to notify it clearly - that no support
whatsoever can be given to Mgr. Lefebvre as long as the ideas
contained in the Manifesto of 21 November continue to be the basis
for his work."
We cannot
communicate these decisions to you without profound sadness. We
know the generous perseverance with which you have worked and
the good which in consequence has been accomplished. We can well
imagine what a cruel predicament you will find yourself in. But
we are sure that all those who have read or wish to read your
Declaration, without gratuitously suspecting any motives other
than the Declaration itself for the actions which have been taken,
will concede that, in the face of the evidence, matters could
not have been resolved differently, given your refusal to withdraw
this text. No Church institution, no priestly formation can be
built upon such a foundation.
We hope,
Your Excellency, that the Lord will give you the light and enable
you to find the path that conforms with His will, in the confidence
of the one to whom as bishops we owe a sincere and effective obedience.
As for us,
we can only assure you of our fraternal attachment and our prayers.
Gabriel-Marie
Cardinal Garrone,
Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education
President of the Commission of Cardinals
John
Cardinal Wright,
Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Clergy
Arturo
Cardinal Tabera,
Prefect for the Sacred Congregation for Religious
and for Secular Institutes
This letter
is being sent to Their Excellencies Mgr. Mamie and Mgr. Adam.
As an exercise
in public relations on behalf of Mgr. Lefebvre's persecutors, the
Cardinals' letter is indeed a superb performance. The image it evokes
is clear. It is of three very moderate, reasonable, and supremely
charitable cardinals doing everything in their power to save a well-intentioned
but hopelessly intransigent and unenlightened pre-Vatican II Archbishop
from the tragic consequences of his own invincible folly. But he
refused to be saved!
The crucial
phrase in this letter reads as follows, and its significance could
not possibly be overstressed:
...the Declaration
stated explicitly what the Visitor to Ecône (Mgr. Descamps) had
been unable to bring to light.
The Cardinals
admit quite openly that the Apostolic Visitation had been unable
to bring to light any excuse for closing the Seminary - and, as
was stated earlier, it was clearly to find an excuse that the Visitors
were sent in the first place. It will be necessary for the reader
to pause for a few moments and consider the precise import of what
the Cardinals are actually saying here if its full enormity is to
be appreciated. When carefully analyzed the following conclusions
are not simply obvious but inescapable.
1) The Visitors
were sent to the Seminary to find a pretext for closing it but could
not do so.
2) During their
Visitation they made statements which outraged the Catholic sensibilities
of the seminarians.
3) In order
to insure that the scandal caused did not result in any seminarians
confusing Rome itself with the persons of the Visitors representing
it, Mgr. Lefebvre made his Declaration affirming his faith in the
Eternal Rome.
4) This Declaration,
provoked by the Visitors, is now to be used as the sole, I repeat,
the sole justification for closing the Seminary in place of the
evidence the Visitors could not find because it did not exist. This
is the "Conciliar Church" with a vengeance!
In order to
alienate traditionally-minded Catholics from Mgr. Lefebvre it was
necessary to invoke papal authority for the action taken against
him. But in their anxiety to involve the Pope the three Cardinals
only succeed in contradicting themselves and adding to the confusion
and legitimate suspicion surrounding the whole process against the
Archbishop. Firstly, they claim that their unanimous conclusions
(not decisions) and the complete dossier have been passed to the
Pope so that he can "judge for himself."
Secondly,
they claim that "it is with the entire approval of His Holiness
that we communicate the following decisions to you." This makes
it clear that the decisions are not those of the Pope; they are
the decisions of an unspecified authority which the Pope is alleged
to have approved. The obvious solution would be that the decisions
are those of the three Cardinals themselves but this possibility
is ruled out by an explicit statement referring to the third decision:
"we are invited to notify it clearly.”
It will also
be noted that the three decisions are included within quotation
marks and so the cardinals are definitely communicating a decision
of someone other than themselves who is not the Pope. Thus, the
dubious legality of the procedure used against Mgr. Lefebvre is
highlighted by the fact that he has been condemned by an anonymous
judge.
Another significant
point is that when quoting the decision of this anonymous judge
within the quotation marks, the Declaration of Mgr. Lefebvre is
misrepresented by the use of the term "Manifesto." The
Cardinals themselves use the same term as Mgr. Lefebvre - "Declaration."
"Manifesto" is also the term used in a contentious report
which appeared in L'Osservatore Romano two days later, 8
May 1975, which will be discussed in chronological sequence
under that date. As L'Osservatore Romano traditionally reflects
the mind of the Secretary of State it is at the very least a reasonable
hypothesis that the anonymous judge of Mgr. Lefebvre was none other
than Cardinal Villot himself. It is also of very great significance
that when the Cardinals' letter appeared in the official French
Catholic daily, La Croix, on 5 June 1975, the tell-tale quotation
marks had conveniently vanished.
Nor can it
be concluded with any certainty that these decisions were approved
by the Pope simply on the word of the Cardinals concerned. As the
case of Father Coache, cited on pp.108-109
proves, it can no longer be presumed
that any statement coming from the Vatican is true. In this case,
it will be noted that in the letter they refer to their discussions
with Mgr. Lefebvre taking place "in such a fraternal atmosphere
that on no occasion did our difference of opinion compromise the
profound and serene communion which exists among us." Yet,
as Mgr. Lefebvre's account of the discussions revealed, Cardinals
Garrone and Tabera treated him with considerable acrimony and even
accused him of being a lunatic.
Further, when
considering the integrity of these Cardinals it must be noted that
in 1976 the transcript of the discussions which had been refused
to Mgr. Lefebvre was leaked to the press in what Mgr. Lefebvre claims
is definitely a "doctored" version.1
The first documentary
evidence of papal approval of the action taken against Mgr. Lefebvre
was the letter from the Pope of 29
June 1975, which will be discussed under that date, and which
appears suspiciously like an attempt to impart retroactive legality
to a totally illegal process.
One thing is
at least certain:
It is obvious
that Mgr. Lefebvre and the three Cardinals do not seem to be speaking
of the same Church. As the French canonist, Fr. E. des Graviers,
said in the 1 July 1975 issue of the Courrier de Rome, with
reference to Mgr. Lefebvre's Declaration:
What reproach
can be made against such a text, against such a declaration of
fidelity to the Catholic faith and to the Church? In our view
none at all....And yet our three Cardinals find such a declaration
unacceptable on all points! They must therefore be opposed to
the Tradition of the Church, to Her traditional teaching and to
the Councils. It is not Mgr. Lefebvre who should be criticized
but rather the letter of the three Cardinals - and if it expresses
their innermost convictions, one has a right to ask if they are
worthy to wear the purple...."
Finally, it
is necessary to point out that much of Mgr. Lefebvre's Declaration
is concerned with judgments on the present state of the Church.
These are statements of fact and must be accepted or refuted on
empirical grounds. The Archbishop alleges that the present reforms
"have contributed and continue to contribute to the destruction
of the Church, to the ruin of the priesthood, etc. etc." It
is ludicrous to claim that such statements cannot be reconciled
with "an authentic fidelity to the Church." Pope Paul
VI himself admitted that the Church was undergoing a process of
"self-destruction" as early as 1968.2
Was Pope Paul's assessment accurate or not? Are the reforms which
have followed Vatican II contributing to this process or not ? These
are not questions of doctrine but questions of fact which the Cardinals
and all the other opponents of Archbishop Lefebvre did not dare
to answer.
On
8 May 1975 it became clear that the campaign against Ecône was moving
to a climax when L'Osservatore Romano intervened with
an unsigned article, A proposito di un Manifesto, indicating
its origination in the Secretariat of State.3
The Secretary
of State in question was Cardinal Villot, who exemplified, and exercised
continual pressure on behalf of, episcopal Neo-Modernist influences
within France.
In his book,
Catholiques et Socialistes (Editeur: Grasset), Georges Hourdin,
the doyen of French Neo-Modernism, has publicly boasted:
Paul VI would
indeed be astonished, perhaps even shocked, if he were told that
he is the Pope of the transition to Socialism. Yet this statement
may well prove to be historically true. In any case he is certainly
the Pope who recognized the legitimacy of the transition. Many
of the texts he has written or signed prove this. These texts
can be said to be French in inspiration.
The dishonesty
of the L'Osservatore Romano article of 8 May 1975 can be
seen from the following facts:
First, the
article was tendentiously entitled "Concerning a Manifesto."
Thus what had been essentially a declaration of basic principles
was subtly presented as though it were something in the nature of
a defiant political program.
This impression
was reinforced by stating in the text of the article simply that
it had been published by the French review Itinéraires, without
any indication that its author was Mgr. Lefebvre and that he had
signed the Declaration. To still further emphasize this impression,
the article appeared on page two, which in the daily Italian edition,
is where the editor customarily takes issue with the press or publishes
mises au point of this kind directed against publications
of one kind or another.
Secondly, although
L'Osservatore Romano published most of the Declaration, it
omitted the key paragraph at the very end where Mgr. Lefebvre made
clear his fidelity "to the Catholic and Roman Church "
and "to all of Peter's successors."
Thirdly, although
Mgr. Lefebvre had made his attitude to Rome and to the Holy Father
clearer still in his further statement of 19
March 1975 (see pp. 49-51)
which was published in the 15 April Supplément-Voltigeur
of Itinéraires and published once again in the May 1975 issue
of Itinéraires, the readers of L'Osservatore Romano
were kept in total ignorance of this further clarification of Mgr.
Lefebvre's position.
Fourthly, although
L'Osservatore Romano admitted that there have been all kinds
of abuses and excesses, that "it has been possible to speak
of the 'decomposition' of the Church," and that "defensive
measures have not been in proportion to the dangers (which is precisely
what Mgr. Lefebvre has been saying all along)," the article
then proceeded, not to suggest that certain measures should be taken
without delay to remedy this catastrophic state of affairs, but
to suggest that the (apparently anonymous) author of the Declaration
was objectively schismatic and in revolt against the authentic Magisterium
of the Church.
Towards the
end it asked the following questions (which are numbered here for
ease of reference):
1. Under
such conditions, is there still any real, and not just verbal
communion with the living Church?
2. Whom will
they obey, ultimately, those who recognize themselves in this
document? Who will be the interpreter of this Tradition to which
reference is made, when the interpretation of the living Magisterium
is suspected a priori?
3. What are
we to think of those who will be formed in this spirit?
4. How is
it possible, without an extraordinary presumption, to conceive
such a completely negative appreciation of the Episcopate and
of all those working in the service of Christ in Seminaries and
Universities?
Immediately
afterwards there followed the insinuation:
5. One hesitates
to speak of a sect, but how can one avoid thinking of it at least?
That such
attitudes can develop in the Church today, that they can be publicly
expressed and sweep along people in good faith, cannot but make
us reflect seriously. The appearances must be grave indeed for
people to be able to lose the sense of the Church to such an extent,
on the pretext of saving her.
The significance
of these questions and insinuations can be properly appreciated
only when one asks what "Living Church," what "Living
Magisterium" is under suspicion? For whereas one must indeed
be uncompromisingly respectful towards the authentic Magisterium
of the living Church, this certainly does not mean that one must
accept heresy simply because it has been proposed for acceptance
by false shepherds of episcopal rank.
And this is
precisely what is being done by the French Hierarchy (not that it
is alone by any means), with the connivance of the Secretariat of
State, which acts in the name of the Pope but in effect is an instrument
of French Neo-Modernism.
How indeed
could anyone not suspect the orthodoxy of the French Hierarchy
when, in addition to having been a party to the falsification of
Scripture in its catechetical texts and also in its Lectionary for
Sunday Masses, it has gone so far as to define the Mass in the very
terms anathematized by Trent (stating in the Sunday Missal that
"at Mass it is simply a question of commemorating the unique
sacrifice already accomplished"), and even to encourage Sunday
assemblies without a priest, justifying this (in the words of Mgr.
Derouet, Bishop of Sées) on the pretext that "the Christian
Sunday is not primarily a gathering around a priest. It is the meeting
of Christians who wish to celebrate together the Resurrection of
their Lord, to nourish themselves with His word and His body."4
There are two
points concerning this stage of the anti-Ecône campaign which are
particularly worthy of attention.
Firstly, the
8 May 1975 article in L'Osservatore Romano was simply the
opening salvo of a press barrage which had been carefully prepared
and directed by the Secretariat of State.5
Secondly, the
basic theme of the campaign was that Mgr. Lefebvre's Declaration
and Ecône's existence represented "a considered and explicit
rejection of the decisions of the Second Vatican Council and of
the authority of Pope Paul VI."
This
was made particularly obvious when on 9 May 1975, the day after
the publication of the L'Osservatore Romano article,
Mgr. Mamie announced that he had withdrawn episcopal approval from
the Priestly Society of St. Pius X with the agreement of the three
Roman Congregations (Clergy, Religious and Secular Institutes, and
Catholic Education).6
Mgr. Mamie explained:
Behind the
very pronounced attachment of this fraternity (and in particular
of the Seminary at Ecône) to the traditional liturgy and the Latin
language, and its determination to defend tenets of faith and
discipline which are essential to the Church against certain current
fashions of thought and action, lay in actual fact a considered
and explicit rejection of the decisions of the Second Vatican
Council and of the authority of Pope Paul VI. This became evident
soon enough. A declaration by Mgr. Lefebvre dated 21 November
1974, and widely circulated since, provided clear expression of
this rejection and gave us the painful evidence that it was henceforth
impossible to approve this institution and its orientations.
It was subsequently
revealed that on 6 May 1975 a commission composed of Cardinals Garrone,
Wright, and Tabera had informed Mgr. Lefebvre "by express mandate
of the Holy Father" that it had authorized Mgr. Mamie to withdraw
the approval granted by his predecessor to the Society of St. Pius
X, and that its various establishments, in particular the Ecône
Seminary, had no longer any right to exist.
There were
two significant omissions in Mgr. Mamie's statement.
Although the
Old Mass could almost be said to be Ecône's raison d’ être,
there was no reference by Mgr. Mamie to Ecône's refusal to use the
New Order of the Mass. This would seem to have been an implicit
admission that fidelity to the Old Mass cannot be called in question
canonically, or be cited to justify disciplinary action.
It was no less
significant that the Report of the Apostolic Visitation of the Seminary
by two representatives of the Holy See in November 1974 was not
mentioned. This, however, was scarcely surprising, for as Mgr. Lefebvre
had stated on 16 April 1975:
In the midst
of the trials which the Church is undergoing today, our modest
initiative pursues its course with the blessing of God and even
with a flattering report from the Visitors sent by Rome last November.
The fact that
the only evidence that Mgr. Mamie could adduce was Mgr. Lefebvre's
Declaration demonstrated that there was in fact no case whatsoever
against Ecône. For Mgr. Mamie's statement distorts Mgr. Lefebvre's
21 November 1974 Declaration and also entirely ignores his supplementary
statement of 19 March 1975 in the same way as did the L' Osservatore
Romano of 8 May 1975.
Who
is Rejecting Vatican II?
The injustice
of the attack against Mgr. Lefebvre and Ecône is made very clear
when some examination is made of precisely what is meant by a "rejection
of the decisions of the Second Vatican Council." I have provided
considerable documentation in my book Pope John's Council
to prove that what are often passed off as decisions of the Council
are, in fact, aberrations emanating from the post-conciliar commissions
invested with the power to implement the conciliar documents. Only
too often it will be found that not a single word can be quoted
from any Council document authorizing these aberrations, which are
justified by the commissions either on the grounds that the Council
did not actually forbid them or by a very liberal interpretation
of one of the ambiguous phrases which had been inserted in the documents
precisely to justify such aberrations after the Council. In the
Constitution on the Liturgy, for example, there is not a single
word ordering the use of the vernacular. The celebration of Mass
facing the people is not even mentioned. Nor does it anywhere recommend
Communion in the hand, Lay Ministers of Communion, or the composition
of new Canons. But the Constitution does specifically state that
"there must be no innovations unless the good of the Church
genuinely and certainly requires them."
However, there
were some specific instructions in the Constitution. For example,
it was insisted that Gregorian chant should be "given pride
of place in liturgical services. "
This instruction
is obeyed in Ecône. But how many other seminaries obey it?
The same Constitution
ordered that "in accordance with centuries-old tradition of
the Latin rite, the Latin language is to be retained by clerics
in reciting the Divine Office".
This instruction
is obeyed in Ecône. But how many other seminaries obey it?
The Council
also ordered members of religious orders to wear their habit; it
also recommended a year of spirituality at the commencement of seminary
studies; it demanded that a key place should be given to the teaching
of St. Thomas during seminary training.
Ecône obeys
the Council faithfully in all these respects. But how many other
seminaries do?
It is indeed
no exaggeration to claim that the Holy See's Basic Norms for
Priestly Training, issued in 1970 along the lines suggested
by Vatican II, are observed more faithfully at Ecône than at almost
any other seminary in the West.
The fact of
the matter is that there is not one hierarchy in the West which
is making any attempt to enforce the teaching of Vatican II, even
where this teaching is quite unequivocal and explicit.
As for the
sudden concern on the part of the Secretariat of State for "the
authority of Pope Paul VI" - where was this concern at the
time of Humanae Vitae? It is worthwhile examining the statements
of the Western Hierarchies and seeing just how many have honestly
attempted to insist upon the clear and uncompromising condemnation
of contraception demanded by the Pope. There were a few which did
so in words (e.g., India, Ireland, and Scotland), but they were
very few. And even in Ireland there has been a notorious refusal
by Authority to discipline rebellious theologians and academic clerics
who have continued to defy the Church's authoritative teaching on
marriage and the family with impunity.
It may also
be asked how many hierarchies have attempted to enforce the Eucharistic
teaching given by Pope Paul VI in Mysterium Fidei, or to
insure that catechetics in Catholic schools are based on Pope Paul's
Credo of the People of God?
How many hierarchies
take any action to discipline priests and institutions which do
not simply ignore but even ridicule the authoritative teaching of
the Holy Father? To ask such questions is also to answer them. It
can thus be seen that the alleged respect for the decisions of Vatican
II and for the authority of the Holy Father professed by Mgr. Mamie,
the Commission of Cardinals, and the Secretariat of State is hypocrisy
of the most blatant variety.
The true significance
of the action taken against Ecône was given in an article by Edith
Delamare in the French daily L'Aurore on 14 May 1975, in
which she said:
The action
taken by Rome against a flourishing Seminary, which is flourishing
because it is traditional, is an historic act in the already two-centuries-old
struggle between Liberal and conservative Catholicism.
In his Encyclical
Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Saint Pius X, the Patron of Archbishop
Lefebvre's Society and Seminary, pointed out that the conserving
force in the Church is Tradition and that Tradition is represented
by religious authority. But the appalling seriousness of the present
crisis can be gauged from the fact that religious authority is being
used to suppress those who uphold Tradition, not those who have
contempt for Tradition.
Saint Pius
X wrote;
There is
little reason to wonder that the Modernists vent all their bitterness
and hatred on Catholics who zealously fight the battles of the
Church. There is no species of insult which they do not heap upon
them, but the usual course is to charge them with ignorance or
obduracy.
That, alas,
is what was being done by the Vatican secretariat of State in the
name of Pope Paul VI.
Reaction
to the Condemnation
Following the
withdrawal of canonical recognition from the Society of Saint Pius
X (and from its establishments, which include Ecône) there was much
sympathy expressed for the Seminary and for Archbishop Lefebvre
in both Switzerland and France.
In Switzerland,
the news of the action taken by Mgr. Mamie with the support of Cardinals
Wright, Garrone, and Tabera was reported in the press of 10 May.
On the following day, 11 May, the Sunday after the Ascension, the
number of layfolk at the principal Mass at the Seminary rose from
150 to 300, despite Mgr. Mamie's insistence that no faithful Catholic
could continue to support the Seminary.
The congregation
could not but feel that the Gospel for the day was particularly
appropriate, especially the passage (St. John 16: 1-2):
I have told
you this so that your faith may not be taken unawares. They will
forbid you the synagogue; nay, the time is coming when anyone
who puts you to death will claim that he is performing an act
of worship to God.
A number of
Swiss papers published a statement by leading personalities in Valais,
the Canton in which Ecône is located. This statement, which had
been issued earlier with a view to preventing the action since taken,
was the reproduction of a letter to Pope Paul in which these leading
public figures affirmed their total support for the work for the
renewal of the priesthood being accomplished at Ecône. They insisted
that the Seminary had brought honor to their country and they deplored
the campaign of denigration against it by all kinds of subversive
elements.
They stated:
We admire
this Seminary because of its fidelity to the doctrine of the Church,
to the Chair of Peter, and to the totality of Catholic Tradition
to which you so often draw our attention, most Holy Father.
The signatories
included a recent President of Switzerland.
On 15 May 1975,
Mgr. Mamie wrote to the priests of his diocese. His aim was obviously
to reconcile his failure to discipline his own refractory clergy
(concerning whom he complained at some length) with his suppression
of Ecône, which exemplified obedience to Tradition.
It was a singularly
unconvincing exercise. Its most bizarre feature was the contrast
between his call for unbounded charity, his recognition of the difficulties
felt by those who preferred the Old Mass and his response - an absolute
prohibition of the public celebration of the Old Mass in his diocese!
21
May 1975 - Letter to Cardinal Staffa from Archbishop Lefebvre
Eminence,
Please find
herewith the documents which support, or which are the cause of,
my appeal to your Department.
I am drawing
up an appeal:
1. Against
the form in which the decisions were taken expressed in the letter
of the 6 May 1975 as well by His Excellency Monseigneur Mamie,
Bishop of Fribourg, as by the three Cardinals who signed the letter
addressed to me from Rome.
This form
of procedure is contrary to Canon 493 of the Codex Juris Canonici.7
2. Against
the competence of the Commission of Cardinals which condemns me
on a matter of faith, because of my Declaration which appeared
in the review Itinéraires and which I wrote on 21 November
1974. I demand to be judged by the only Tribunal competent in
these matters, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith.
3. Against
the sentence pronounced by Monseigneur Mamie and approved by the
Cardinals of the Commission: in fact, my Declaration, if it deserves
condemnation, should condemn me personally and not destroy the
Fraternity, nor the Seminary, nor the houses that have been erected,
the more so as the Cardinals assured me that the Apostolic Visitation
had passed a favorable judgment on the work of the Seminary, the
Visitation which took place on 11, 12, 13 November 1974.
In virtue
of this appeal, and in virtue of the law (this appeal being suspensive),
I consider that, until proof to the contrary, my Fraternity and
and that depends on it keep their canonical existence.
I remain
at the disposal of your Eminence for further information, and
I beg you to accept the expression of my respect in Our Lord and
Our Lady.
†Marcel
Lefebvre
Footnotes
1.
Hanu, p.214 (183).
2.
"La chiesa si trova in un momento...si potrebbe dire di
autodistruzione." L'Osservatore Romano, 8 December
1968.
3.
This article was reproduced under the title Concerning a Manifesto
in the 12 June issue of the English edition of L’Osservatore
Romano.
4.
In the absence of the priest, there can of course be no Sacrifice
of the Mass, no Real Presence and consequently no Body (of Christ)
with which the faithful can nourish themselves. This can be seen
to be particularly ominous when it is borne in mind that the original
Article 7 of the Institutio Generalis defined the Mass as
"a sacred meeting or assembly of the People of God, met together
under the presidency of the priest, to celebrate the memorial of
the Lord." For with the function of the priest thus presented
by the authors of the New Mass as being essentially presidential,
his role as priest was already implicitly dispensable.
5.
Consider for example the Report from Rome dated 11 May 1975,
obviously based on briefing by a spokesman of the Secretariat of
State, which appeared in the Milan newspaper Corriere Della Sera
under the headline, CONSERVATIVE BISHOP NEAR TO EXCOMMUNICATION.
6.
Since the Society had been established canonically outside Mgr.
Mamie's diocese it could not be suppressed without the approval
of Rome.
7.
Canon 493 stipulates that canonical authorization given by a bishop
for a foundation cannot be withdrawn except by the Holy See (and
not by that bishop or his successors).
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