–Have you seen what an uproar your first article on the philo-Lefebvrists has caused?
–Well, the scandalous commotion was not caused by my article, but by the philo-Lefebvrists themselves, who saw themselves portrayed to the life. Which proves, in case anyone doubted it, that they do indeed exist.
—I will briefly point out some arguments that the philo-Lefebvrists put forward to justify Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPX, defending the forbidden episcopal ordinations and other attitudes and words of his against the Second Vatican Council, against the Popes and against the post-conciliar liturgy. The philo-Lefebvrists take these arguments from the Lefebvrists and make them their own, some more and others less. And I note here that among the Lefebvrists, as among the philo-Lefebvrists, there are very diverse degrees in the force of their approvals and condemnations.
1. The principle of the lesser evil justifies Archbishop Lefebvre. Faced with an enormous evil, the ruin of the doctrine of the faith and the profanation of the liturgy, and a lesser evil, the material disobedience to an ecclesiastical law, Archbishop Lefebvre found himself obliged to choose between two evils and, heroically –for he well knew that excommunication would fall upon him and upon the Bishops ordained– he opted for the lesser evil. «Le lien officiel à la Rome moderniste n’est rien à côté de la préservation de la foi!» (Tissier 589) [1].
–The end does not justify the means. Never. Never let us “do evil, that there may come good” (Rom 3:8). –The principle of the lesser evil never justifies the commission of an evil action, such as an episcopal ordination forbidden by the Law of the Church and by the express command of the Pope. –Obviously, Archbishop Lefebvre was “not obliged” to choose between two evils. There was no necessity of choosing, because there were and are other means to fight, within obedience to the Pope and to the Church, in favor of doctrinal orthodoxy and of the better liturgy. –Many defenders of orthodoxy in post-conciliar times have suffered the martyrdom of truly horrible persecutions –prohibitions, for example, in a Seminary against praying the rosary, kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, reading Saint Thomas, etc.–, and they waged and wage their battle, at times losing thereby their health and every form of prosperity in their life, without resorting to the carrying out of “schismatic acts.” –To justify a most grave disobedience to the ecclesial Law and to the command of the Pope by the supposed good effects hoped for from it is an inadmissible moral consequentialism.
2. Thanks to Archbishop Lefebvre and to the SSPX the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei was formed (motu proprio Ecclesia Dei, 1988), thanks to them the Catholic groups received under it exist, and the ancient Mass was saved (motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, 2007).
–Again: inadmissible moral consequentialism. –It is beyond doubt that God can draw good out of the sins we commit (Rom 8:28), and that “every cloud has a silver lining.” But the sins do not thereby cease to be sins, nor the evils, evils. As we shall later see, other traditional Catholic groups, attached without reservation to the Second Vatican Council, to the post-conciliar Popes and to the ancient Liturgy, have remained in perfect communion with the Church. They, together with other inner forces of the Church, have contributed positively to the promulgation of the pontifical documents Ecclesia Dei and Summorum Pontificum. On the contrary, Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPX contributed to them negatively, obstinately maintaining for decades their reservations about the authority of the Council and of the post-conciliar Popes. That is why Pope Benedict XVI, after lifting the excommunications of the Bishops, calls them “to repentance and to the return to unity” (10-III-2009).
3. The decision of John Paul II to excommunicate the Lefebvrist Bishops was a pastoral option, and therefore not infallible. It arose from an erroneous pastoral discernment.
–Obedience to the Pope is not founded on the conviction that his prudential commands are infallible, but on the faith that by God’s election he is the Vicar of Christ, the Successor of Peter, the universal Pastor of the Church. It is obvious, for example, that a priest owes obedience to his Bishop not because he believes that his pastoral commands are of infallible pastoral prudence, but because he recognizes in the Bishop the local Successor of the Apostles, the bearer of the apostolic Authority. A fortiori this holds in the obedience most especially due to the Pope.
4. The excommunication of the Lefebvrist Bishops was unjust, and therefore invalid. And it was revocable, as has recently been confirmed, when Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication.
–The excommunication announced by Cardinal Gantin, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops (17-VI-1988), the day before the ordinations, and declared by the Congregation after they were carried out (1-VII-1988) and by Pope John Paul II in his apostolic letter Ecclesia Dei (2-VII-1988), was not unjust and did not proceed from a mistaken discernment, since it was automatic, latæ sententiæ. –On the other hand, the lifting of the excommunication in no way expresses a recognition that it had previously been unjust and invalid, but is to be understood as a “gesture of mercy toward the four Bishops, validly but not lawfully ordained,” as is expressed in the very Decree of lifting (21-I-2009) and in the explanatory pontifical Letter accompanying it (10-III-2009).
5. Lefebvre recognized the Roman Primacy, and precisely for that reason he gave no canonical mission whatever to his auxiliary Bishops. «Ce seraient mes auxiliares, sans aucune juridiction, tout en pouvant avoir una fonction dans la Fraternité» (Tissier 573) [2]. This attitude, then, exempted him from disobedience. What he intended was only to secure the existence of the SSPX, necessary “for the continuity of the Church” in doctrinal orthodoxy and in the true liturgy.
–No one can give what he does not have. Archbishop Lefebvre could not confer canonical mission within the Church upon his Bishops, entrusting to them, for example, a Catholic diocese, as is obvious. –The law of the Church commands, under penalty of excommunication, “not to ordain Bishops” without the authorization of the Holy See. It says nothing of the missio that normally accompanies the ordination.
6. Blind obedience can be morally evil in certain extreme circumstances. In Archbishop Lefebvre’s case, confronted with a situation of doctrinal, disciplinary and liturgical degradation of the Church never before known, there was a moral obligation of conscience to make the “lex suprema: salus populi” prevail over every ecclesiastical Law and over every personal command of the Pope. As he used to say: «Nous sommes en un temps dans lequel le droit divin naturel et surnaturel passe avant le droit positif ecclésiastique lorsque celui-ci s’y oppose au lieu d’en être le canal» (Tissier 494) [3]. There is an “eternal Rome” and a “temporal Rome,” and «c’est la Roma éternelle qui condamne la Rome temporelle. Nous préférons choisir l’éternelle» (ib.) [4]. «Le coup de maître de Satan a été de jeter toute l’Église, par obéissance, dans la désobéissance à sa Tradition» (ib.) [5].
–All heretics and schismatics followed and follow that same principle with absolute conviction. But we reject it, likewise, with absolute firmness: it is irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church on apostolic authority and ecclesial obedience. –The best way to serve the common good of the people of God, lex suprema, salus populi, is to pray and to work in perfect fidelity to the ecclesial Law and to the commands of the Pope. Ecclesial disobedience never comes from the Holy Spirit. And since the Lord is the only Savior of the Church and of the world, He never ordains the positive collaboration of those who resist the Church and the Pope.
7. Archbishop Lefebvre erred in the ordination of the Bishops, but he did it out of love for the Church. His intention was good, and his conscience good and upright. Thus argue the “more open” philo-Lefebvrists, those who go so far as to acknowledge the “mistake” of Archbishop Lefebvre. In an act of supreme magnanimity, he came to make his own the attitude of Saint Paul: “I feel great sadness and continual sorrow in my heart, for I would wish to be myself accursed (anathema), separated from Christ, for the sake of my brethren,” the Jews (Rom 9:1-5). “It is expedient that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole people should perish” (Jn 11:50).
–It is never lawful to procure the spiritual good of others to the detriment of one’s own spiritual good. Let us recall the doctrine of Saint Thomas on the order of charity. Charity is universal, it is directed to all beings, but given the limitation of man, in the concrete exercise of charity there is an objective order of priorities, which must be respected (STh II-II,26,1). Between God and ourselves, it is clear that we must love God more than our own life, our relatives, friends or possessions (Lk 14:26. 33). Between ourselves and our neighbor, it is beyond doubt that we must love ourselves more, since it is God who proposes to man the love of himself as the model of love of neighbor; and the example is greater than its imitation (II-II,26,4 sed contra). And although at times the material good of the neighbor may be preferred to one’s own, on the contrary, one’s own supernatural good must always be preferred to the supernatural good of the neighbor. It is not, then, lawful to commit the slightest sin, even if it, supposedly, were to bring with it a great spiritual good for our brother (26,4). Thus the saints have always acted and act.
8. Saint Athanasius, for defending the Catholic faith in times of enormous spread of Arianism in the Church, was excommunicated by the Pope. And the penalty of excommunication suffered by Archbishop Lefebvre and his Bishops must be understood in analogous circumstances and intentions.
–The historical case alluded to does not serve as an argument. In the first place, because Archbishop Lefebvre was not excommunicated for holding false doctrines, but for carrying out an episcopal celebration gravely forbidden by the Law and by the Pope. And in the second place, because the excommunication of Saint Athanasius was clearly invalid, not having been freely signed by the Pope. According to the testimony of Saint Athanasius himself, “Liberius, having been banished, gave way after two years and, fearing the death with which he was threatened, subscribed” (Historia Arrianorum ad Monachos 4). Pope Liberius, before and after that excommunication, always supported Saint Athanasius, overcoming terrible pressures and even attempts at bribery on the part of the Arian Emperor.
All the saints who have sought the reform of the Church have always pursued it by the path of obedience. And it must be noted that not a few of them had to live through circumstances of the Church as appalling –though perhaps not so much– as those which many Catholics of the de-Christianized West had to live through in the post-conciliar period, when in not a few local Churches there were Bishops, priests and theologians apparently bent on destroying their faith and on separating them completely from the doctrinal and spiritual traditions of the Catholic Church.
Saint Francis of Assisi forbade his friars to preach the Gospel without the permission of the Bishop or of the parish priest, and rendered absolute obedience to the Pope: “kneeling down, he humbly and devoutly promised obedience and reverence to the lord pope” (Legend of the Three Companions 52). Saint Ignatius of Loyola and the Society of Jesus always held firm to their 18 Rules for Thinking with the Church (Exercises352-370). Saint Teresa of Jesus declared: “I hold it as very certain that the devil will not deceive, nor will God permit him to deceive, a soul that has no confidence whatever in itself and is strengthened in the faith […] and that always strives to go in conformity with what the Church holds (maintains)” (Life 25,12). “In a matter of faith, against the least ceremony of the Church that someone might see me going, I would put myself to die a thousand deaths,” rather than disobey (33,5). The saints never even conceived the possibility that a disobedience, great or small, to the ecclesial Law and to the commands of the Pope could bring about any good for the reform of the Church.
—There are many traditional Catholic communities which, in perfect communion with the Pope and the Church, accept without reservation the sacred Second Vatican Council, profess the traditional doctrine and, with the proper permissions, ordinarily celebrate the ancient Liturgy, while at the same time respecting the post-conciliar Liturgy. In this sense, it may be said that the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, at the present moment, has been left practically alone in its deficient communion with the Catholic Church. I present below a list, probably incomplete, and perhaps inexact in some case, of the religious and priestly Communities that currently follow the traditional liturgy in full union with Rome. Some of them celebrate the Liturgy in the two forms of the Latin rite.
Notre Dame de Fidélité Abbey in Jouques, Notre Dame de Miséricorde Abbey in Rosans, Abbaye Notre-Dame de l’Annonciation, Sainte-Madeleine Abbey in Le Barroux, Notre Dame de Fontgombault Abbey and its daughter houses: Notre Dame de Randol Abbey, Notre Dame de Triors Abbey, Notre Dame de Donezan Abbey, and Notre Dame de Clear Creek Abbey; Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney, Adorers of the Royal Heart of Christ the High Priest and King, Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, Benedictines of the Immaculate, Canons Regular of the Mother of God, Canons Regular of the New Jerusalem, Canons Regular of Saint John Cantius, Poor Clares of the Immaculate, Missionary Community of Jesus, Confraternity of Christ the Priest,Dominican Sisters of the Holy Spirit, Fraternity of Divine Mercy, Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, Fraternity of Saint Vincent Ferrer, Fraternity of Saint Thomas Becket, Little Sisters of Consolation, Hermit Brothers of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer, Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, Institute of the Good Shepherd, Institute of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and Saint Michael the Archangel, Institute of Saint Philip Neri, Institute of the Holy Cross of Riaumont, Missionaries of Divine Mercy, Carmelite Monks of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Oasis of Jesus the Priest, Religious Victims of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, my grandchildren of Schola Veritatis, Servants of Jesus and Mary, Reparer Servants of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus.
The rites of the traditional Liturgy, so harshly contested for decades, have been chosen by all these communities for three fundamental reasons: 1.-for the doctrinal depth and the sacred beauty of the ancient Rite; 2.-to bear witness to the homogeneous continuity of the liturgical forms of the Church; and 3.-to foster the internal reconciliation of the Church herself, which on the occasion of the post-conciliar liturgical renewal had to suffer very harsh tensions. These are precisely the ends intended by Benedict XVI in his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum (2007). The existence of these communities in the Church is today all the more valuable the greater is the rejection of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum in not a few local Churches of the de-Christianized West. It is a rejection as great as that which in its day met the Humanæ vitæ and equally lamentable.
The birth of some of these traditional communities shows us clearly that the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei was not constituted thanks to Archbishop Lefebvre and to the SSPX, but precisely to welcome those who were leaving the Fraternity because of the ordination and excommunication of its Bishops. The motu proprio Ecclesia Dei adflicta (2-VII-1988) states:
“a Commission is established with the task of collaborating with the bishops, with the dicasteries of the Roman Curia and with the interested circles, in order to facilitate full ecclesial communion of the priests, seminarians, communities, religious men or women, who until now were bound in various ways to the Fraternity founded by Archbishop Lefebvre, and who wish to remain united to the Successor of Peter in the Catholic Church, preserving their spiritual and liturgical traditions.”
It is worthwhile for me to comment briefly on the history of some of these communities, which have as their common denominator sound doctrine, joy, the sacred ancient liturgy and the great number of vocations.
The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP) came into being on the occasion of the episcopal ordinations carried out by Archbishop Lefebvre. Its second assistant, Fr. Josef Bisig, left the SSPX with fifteen priests and about fifteen seminarians. Received by John Paul II (5 and 6 July), he was encouraged by the Pope in his attempt to form a new Fraternity, which came into being on 18 July in the former Cistercian Abbey of Hauterive, near Fribourg. After a little more than twenty years of existence, the FSSP is present in more than 100 dioceses, spread across 17 countries and four continents. Its principal implantation is in Germany with 24 communities, in Switzerland with 8 and in Austria with 5.
Archbishop Lefebvre felt deeply wounded by the departure of Fr. Bisig from the SSPX, and wrote to a priest (18-III-1989): «Il est évident qu’en se mettant dans les maines des autorités actuelles conciliaires, ils admettent implicitement le concile et les réformes qui en son issuees […] Leur parole est paralysée par cette acceptation. Les évêques les surveillent» (Tissier 600) [6].
The Fraternity of Saint Vincent Ferrer (FSVF) was begun by Fr. Louis-Marie de Blignières (1949-), who made his priestly studies in the SSPX, and who was ordained a priest in 1977 by Archbishop Lefebvre. In 1979 he founds at Chéméré-le-Roi, in Mayenne, a new religious community of Dominican inspiration. And in 1988 the FSVF is canonically erected as a Religious Institute of Pontifical Right and carries out its first priestly ordinations.
This Fraternity, prayerful, studious and apostolic –Dominican–, deeply rooted in tradition, Thomism and the ancient liturgy, at the same time affirms the Catholic truths, above all those most silenced, and maintains a critical attitude toward certain deviations frequent today in the Church. In the publications of the FSVF, and specifically in the review Sedes Sapientiæ, which Fr. de Blignières directs, one may find numerous studies that demonstrate the homogeneous continuity of the Magisterium of the Church, not altered by Vatican II, down to our own day.
The Benedictine Monastery of Le Barroux, through its Abbot Dom Gérard Calvet, was closely linked to Archbishop Lefebvre and to the SSPX, but distanced itself completely on the occasion of the forbidden episcopal ordinations. Dom Gérard, with the unanimous agreement of his community, wrote to the Pope: “We reject every idea of separating ourselves from the Church through the approval of an episcopal ordination conferred without an apostolic mandate” (8-VII-1988) (Tissier 599).
Le Barroux flourished notably, and already toward the year 2000 there were close to 70 monks in its community. A group of them set out to found the Monastery of Sainte-Marie de La Garde (2002).
The Benedictine Monastery of Fontgombault was founded in 1948 by a score of monks from Solesmes. In 1989 they obtained from John Paul II permission to celebrate the traditional Liturgy habitually. Its communion with Rome has always been full. And it is today perhaps the most flourishing Benedictine Monastery in the whole Church, with its 70 monks. It has carried out several foundations: in France, Notre Dame de Randol Abbey (1971), Notre Dame de Triors Abbey (1984) and Notre Dame de Donezan Abbey (formerly Gaussan) (1994); and in the United States, Notre Dame de Clear Creek (priory in 1999, and abbey in 2010).
Let us ask the Lord for the reintegration of the SSPX into the unity of the Church. This has been the principal end intended by Benedict XVI in lifting the excommunication that weighed upon the Lefebvrist Bishops. Thus he himself explained it: “the remission of the excommunication tends to the same end served by the sanction: to invite the four Bishops once more to return” (10-III-2009). Of this I must treat, God willing, in the next article.
Let us pray, let us pray, let us pray.
Author: Fr. José María Iraburu
Index of Reform or apostasy
Translation of the French texts
- The official link with modernist Rome is nothing compared with the preservation of the faith. ↩
- They would be my auxiliaries, without any jurisdiction, though able to have a function in the Fraternity. ↩
- We live in times in which the natural and supernatural divine law takes precedence over positive ecclesiastical law when the latter opposes it instead of being its channel. ↩
- Eternal Rome condemns temporal Rome. That is why we prefer to choose the eternal one. ↩
- Satan’s masterstroke has been to lead the whole Church, through obedience, into disobedience to its Tradition. ↩
- It is evident that, by placing themselves in the hands of the present conciliar authorities, they implicitly accept the council and the reforms that have followed it… Their word is paralyzed by this acceptance. The bishops keep watch over them. ↩
