| Editor: Brother Bruno Bonnet-Eymard | N° 91– April 2010 |
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BROTHER GEORGES OF JESUS-MARY
MYSTICAL DOCTOR OF THE CATHOLIC FAITH
Our Father is an exact copy of Our Lord Jesus Christ in an original way. Throughout twenty centuries of Christianity, the saints have imitated Our Lord in the heroic virtues attached to all sorts of vocations: warrior, like St. George! Priest, apostle, doctor, martyr… St. Thérèse appropriated all those of which the saints of by-gone days had offered examples, and she added: « When I think about the torments that will be the lot of Christians in the time of Antichrist, I feel my heart throb and I would like these torments to be reserved for me. »
At the beginning of the twentieth century, St. Pius X had a premonition about the “time of the Antichrist”. In his Letters to My Friends, the Abbé de Nantes denounced Antichrist’s evildoings within the Church herself. Starting with the Second Vatican Council, the Church has been in the grip of apostasy, as Jerusalem was when she rejected Christ in the first century of our era. Our Father died… rejected by the hierarchy of the Church, as Jesus had been by the Sadducees, the Scribes and the Pharisees.
Frédéric Pons paid him a fitting tribute in Valeurs actuelles. One of our “benefactors”, as St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort used to call his detractors, spit out his venom anonymously in the following issue. I wrote to the editor:
Dear Sir,
The anonymous author of the article published by Valeurs actuelles on 25 February on The Abbé de Nantes and the church was wrongly informed.
The “interdict” imposed by the Bishop of Troyes in 1997 was not confirmed by Rome, but only the suspension “a divinis”, as was mentioned in Frédéric Pons’ article in Valeurs Actuelles of the previous week.
Furthermore, the latter pointed out that the accusation of “sect” had been « judged unfounded by an appeal of April 2005 » in a court at Reims, in which the community of the Little Brothers of the Sacred Heart was recognised as a de facto religious community, even though it does not yet enjoy canonical recognition.
Still another point: the appeal before the Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, which is the Pope’s “Supreme Court”, was rejected on 7 October 2000 as « unfounded », not on the substance but because since no judgement had been rendered, as Frédéric Pons accurately pointed out, there was no judgement to be quashed…
As for the slanderous insinuations, they do no honour to the anonymous author of these lines.
I do not want to encumber your columns, but I would be grateful if you would publish this letter. The Abbé de Nantes was an assiduous reader of Valeurs actuelles. He drew great quantities of information from it for his monthly analyses of political and social current events. I renew the expression of this confidence to you.
I naïvely thought that my letter would appear on the same page, page 36, for the sake of truth and justice. This was not the case. Éric Branca wrote me only that he had transmitted my letter to the “readers’ forum”. Thus, I withdraw my “confidence”, and I insist on making it known publicly. Even at Valeurs actuelles files are treated according to their media impact.
Let us not even mention the others, except Gérard Leclerc in France catholique: the perfidious allusions of this renegade to his former Father and master only add shame to the former and honour to the latter.
As Pons says very well: Georges de Nantes sacrificed everything to his refusal of the Second Vatican Council. « The cause of the Church’s ruin is here, under my scalpel, and it has to be eradicated. » (Autodafé, p. 703)
We must pursue this work, this combat that he sustained as a mystical doctor of the Catholic Faith, penetrated with the cult of God as a son of the Church.
THE CULT OF GOD
« I seem to remember that very early there was mysteriously erected – but by whom? – in the centre of my heart a throne of gold and purple for You alone, where no creature ever sat, even for a single moment. » (Pages mystiques I, 49, September 1972)
Such an exclusive cult has become a sign of contradiction in the Church herself since 7 December 1965, the day that Pope Paul VI, concluding the work of the Second Vatican Council, proclaimed in St. Peter’s Basilica in the presence of all the bishops of the world: « We also, we more than anyone else, have the cult of man! »
It was a profession of idolatry all the more manifest because the Pope was knowingly addressing himself to « man as he really is today, living man, man totally taken up with himself, man who not only makes himself the centre of his own interests, but who dares to claim that he is the end and aim of all existence. »
It was this formidable idol, erected « in its terrible stature » that Paul VI not only refused to knock down but, making himself the spokesman for the Council, he even wanted to honour with an « endless sympathy ».
How can I accept this when « from childhood You are my God, my Father, our heavenly Father, from whom comes so many benefits that you were the sole object of my adoration. I raise my eyes towards the vast, spiritual Heaven of all shades of colour, which is filled with stars at night, and I adore You, Excellent Lord, O my almighty and very merciful Creator. I love You with reverence, perhaps more than I fear You. Nevertheless, so often I allowed myself to disobey You and displease You, probably more out of weakness than malice, but so outrageously that I no longer dare to avow my sincere, profound, and pure love. »
Thus, the cult of God who became man, yes! That is where salvation lies! It is the remedy for all « malice » :
« At the moment when I would have undoubtedly began to love You less, Holy Church revealed the mystery of Jesus, Your Son, to me. » (Pages mystiques I, 49, Sept. 1973)
SON OF THE CHURCH
Born at Toulon on 3 April 1924, he became a child of the Church two days later through Baptism:
« To Your praise, o my God, I confess that not a single day of my life have I ceased to rejoice in being a child of the Church. I give thanks to You for it as a marvellous daily, simple, and prodigious gift, not as a personal merit. The merit is that of the Church herself, of the Popes under whom I lived, of the bishops whom I approached in order to receive the great Sacraments, of those priests, those throngs of the faithful who were for my eyes, my ears, my heart, my intelligence, Your Church! A son has no merit from living with his mother. All the benefit is for him. All the merit belongs to her, so gentle and so wise. She taught me Your Words, she fed me with the Bread of angels, she trained me to Your Law, O Wisdom, and I learned from the example of the saints, the sweetness of Your Beatitudes, Jesus! »
Consequently, how can I accept the Reform of the Church that has opened her to the world and its demons when « she has been for me a mother who was mindful to protect me from the world, to defend me from myself, to exorcise my demons […] ? Thus I remained a very long while delighted, like a child in the arms of his Mother. » (Pages mystiques I, 54, March 1973)
IN PERSONA CHRISTI.
One day, the child changed into a man and was transformed into a Bridegroom, in persona Christi: « What suddenly transformed our relationship was my appointment as parish priest. » That took place in 1958, on 15 September, the centenary of the birth of Father de Foucauld. « Called by my bishop to have the cure of souls, to be the priest of a parish. » And even of three: Villemaur, Pâlis, Planty. « What a marvel. A new bond was formed between You and me, O Lord. I had to be a man, to take the crook of the pastor of the sheep, and from the height of the pulpit and from the altar to the confessional and everywhere, in my turn to teach, to feed, and to lead with authority and devotion.
« O my Church, my venerable Mother for thirty years, you began to appear to me in Christ as a young, joyful, confident spouse, and so ardent that I sensed that you were more enamoured than I of the perfection towards which I was guiding you. Such was our relationship as spouses, our romance, day and night, winter and summer, long hours of the priest in his church, devoted affection of the Church for her pastor, errands on the roads of our parishes. In the fields, the workshops, at the bedsides of the ill, at the exits of the schools, everywhere I found the thousand faces of my Church. All were our children: old people, men, women, practicing Catholics and opponents, and for all of them, each morning I poured out all Your Blood as a redemptive oblation, to all I gave Your Body as food, or at least Your Word.
« Occupying Your visible place, how could I have failed to love this Church with a bridegroom’s joy? I truly experienced the force of this bond of her to me, of me to her, when You tore me away from her, Lord. I have not forgotten her since then, nor did I really lose her. »
It was 14 September 1963: suspens ab officio. It was because of French Algeria and, already, because of the conciliar reform, which was an inconceivable impiety that opened for the “people of God” a new era of « diabolical disorientation » in the judgement of Sister Lucy of Fatima.
« For want of a particular flock I became, like so many others, a priest for the isolated who wander today as sheep without a shepherd. She is still my spouse, this Church that You support with Your indefatigable grace, perhaps even more now that invisible bars prevent me from meeting her, now that a disgrace forbids me from speaking to her. »
It was 25 August 1966: suspens a divinis.
« Neither captivity [15 September 1996] nor even death [15 February 2010] could separate what God had united…
« You are a priest for eternity. Priesthood [27 March 1948], like Baptism [5 April 1924], marked me with its indelible character. Baptism made me what I am, a child of the Church. Later on, ordination consecrated me a man of the Church, attached to her, preoccupied with teaching, feeding, clothing her, with delivering her from her oppressors, forgiving her sins and recalling to her her glories, her treasures of wisdom, of holiness, and all her marvellous future that corresponds to her prestigious past. » (ibid.)
AGAINST HERESY.
These few lines paint a picture of the entire work of the “Catholic Counter-Reformation”, which culminates in an analysis of the Acts of Vatican II, a “reforming” Council, the cause of the ruin of the Church (1971-1972). It continues in an exhaustive preparation of the Third Vatican Council of our hope, a Council that will restore the splendour of the Church in a near and « marvellous future ».
This reconstruction entails a severe critique of the numerous “reforms” and “transformations” that filled the first ten postconciliar years, which were on the agenda of the doctrinal session of the bishops of France that took place in Albi from 22 to 24 February 2010.
The postconciliar years were filled with the controversy aroused in the Church by the “new Mass” and the “new catechism”, not forgetting the revolution of May ’68. Will our bishops make the connection between these events and the Council that they have resolved to « reread attentively » with the aim of « pursuing its reception and helping the Christian people to discover its evangelical depth » ?
Perhaps this will be an opportunity for them to evoke the powerful figure of Fr. Cardonnel, who contributed to the revolution of May ’68 by his preaching of Lent that year.
I remember Gérard Leclerc’s visit at that time. He came to Maison Saint-Joseph to attempt to drag the Abbé de Nantes into this frenzy! The obituary that Leclerc wrote, which was printed in France catholique of 16 February 2010, shows him in the grip of the same lack of intelligence with regard to the man who was his master during his youth: « Georges de Nantes had certain features in common with Lamennais ». Of course one can put anything on paper. On the contrary, the genius of the Abbé de Nantes consisted precisely in opposing the invasion of the Church by Lamennais’ ideas, from 1944 on, while Leclerc played the role of Lamennais at Action française,thus contributing to its implosion in 1968!
It suffices to reread the Letter to My Friends no 236, of 25 October 1966, which shows Paul VI to be a Lamennais on the pontifical throne, in order to understand that Georges de Nantes is the anti-Lamennais par excellence!
“Leclerc”, who in the past, on the advice of the Abbé de Nantes assumed this pseudonym, is obviously a bad “cleric”. « What an inflexible willpower, he writes, which absolutely wants the Pope to go back on a council and reverse his own judgement! » On the contrary, the Abbé de Nantes’ entire approach consisted in asking the Pope to judge, from his first Letter to Paul VI (CRC nos 1 et 2, October - November 1967). The Pope, however, refused to go up to his cathedra in order to pronounce from there the infallible sentence that comes within his Magisterium… because such a sentence would necessarily condemn the errors of the Second Vatican Council.
AGAINST SCHISM: STAUNCH FIDELITY.
This dereliction of duty, however, did not succeed in breaking the nuptial union of the Abbé de Nantes with the Church: « I love her as a man loves his own wife and my heart is seized, enamoured. I must admit that it is You, O Christ, who loves her in me, Your wretched instrument, Your unprofitable servant, who is unworthy to be called Your brother. » (Pages mystiques I, 54, February 1973)
In March 1967, the « Standing Committee” of the French episcopate declared, concerning the Letters to My Friends that were circulating with growing success: « There is no reason to take into account what is affirmed and developed in these letters. »
« Egredere! Egredere! Get out, be off with you! Out of the Church bad child, intruder, adulterer! Am I to hear such curses from our Church? Late in life, I begin to conceive of this ultimate trial of our fidelity. If some short-sighted or malevolent doorkeeper, no longer recognising us, were to turn us out with appalling imprecations, I do not know if I would find perfect joy in them like Francis of Assisi! The other day an enemy announced on the radio that I was going to leave the Church. My God, they desire it so much that they announce it as done? Then the day after simple folk wrote to me: “When we know with what love you love her, if now you leave her, then there is nothing more than can be hoped for and I will leave her also.” What sorrow, what a blow!
« How could I forget my Mother, how could I leave my Spouse? What I would never have been able to believe or envisage, and that I am beginning to dread, is to be cast out into the street by priests or high priests, to be handed over to the world from which my holy parents had separated me when they carried me to the baptismal font under the protection of a priest’s stole. To the man who asked me on the same radio station if I would not one day leave the Church, I replied: Never! Will the Church not expel me? It is an anxiety of maturity, the agony of the agony of my ill wife, of my child with cancer. If in her delirium she turns me out with curses, what will I do?
« O my unrecognisable Church, is it you who will break the ring twenty-five years after our union, fifty years after our encounter? Many others who were saints in their centuries had to endure this ultimate trial and divine purification of their love. But me, but us poor sinners! No, you will not do that to me, will you!
« Remember your generous promise in the prime of my clerical youth: He who comes to me, I will not turn him out. Certainly you remember that, making my own for you the words that Peter addressed to Jesus, I replied to you then: To whom will we go, Mother? You have the words of Eternal Life.
« So, listen. Believe me! If ever you happened one day to turn me out, I will never deny you. »