The Abbé de Nantes is a Catholic priest and theologian who believes that the new "orientations" of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), upheld and further developed by Popes Paul VI and John Paul II, have been an unmitigated disaster for the Church. For him the Council and its upholders have demonstrably taught, or at least insinuated, novel and unCatholic beliefs, which have never before been officially maintained in the Church. In fact, such beliefs had been forcefully condemned by previous Popes, right up to Pope Pius XII who died in 1958.
Today the Abbé de Nantes is well-known and even feared in Rome. His three Books of Accusation against Pope Paul VI (1973), against Pope John Paul II (1983), and against the author of the so-called Catechism of the Catholic Church (1993) have proved to be impossible to answer. His accusations are of the most devastating kind imaginable in the Church, involving open charges of heresy, schism, and scandal against the Vicar of Christ on earth. But despite this, he has never been condemned for any kind of error against the Catholic faith and for thirty-five years his doctrinal criticisms have remained without a formal reply from Rome.
The Abbé Georges de Nantes was born on 3 April 1924 in Toulon (France), the third of five children born to a naval officer. He was ordained priest on 27 March 1948 in Grenoble, the diocese in which he is incardinated. He obtained degrees in theology, scholastic philosophy, and socio-economic science at the Catholic University of Paris, as well as a degree in literature at the Sorbonne. While Professor of Philosophy and then of Theology in various religious and university institutions between 1948 and 1958, he collaborated in several Parisian periodicals of the Catholic and Nationalist Right.
He and his community submitted to this evident act of injustice and left Villemaur. They now settled in the heart of the Champagne countryside, where they still live today, in the various buildings of Maison Saint-Joseph and Maison Sainte-Marie, in Saint-Parres-lès-Vaudes, Aube.
Around this time, 1963, the community took an increasing interest in the great debates of this turbulent period. Initially they had placed great hopes in the proposed Council of reform. But after the opening speech of Pope John XXIII in October 1962, the Abbé de Nantes was forced to reveal his worst fears. These fears would lead him to an increasing opposition to the drafts and ultimately to the very Acts of the Council. After the publication of the encyclical Ecclesiam Suam by Pope Paul VI in August 1964, he stepped up his opposition and strongly criticised the "cult of man", ecumenical "dialogue", and the "reform of the Church" advocated by Paul VI. Immediately after the close of the Council in December 1965, the Abbé de Nantes pronounced a firm and decisive "Non possumus" against the conciliar novelties. For him they were wholly incompatible with the traditional Catholic faith. He was then threatened with an interdict by the Bishop of Troyes. So he asked to be allowed to appeal to Rome. His aim was to obtain from the Sovereign Pontiff a decisive doctrinal judgement on the legitimacy of his opposition to the wave of conciliar reform and revolution which was sweeping through the Church and carrying all before it. At long last, an agreement was concluded with Mgr Le Couëdic and its terms were officially published in January 1966. Placing his trust in this agreement, he then drew up for the attention of the Pro-Prefect of the Holy Office, Cardinal Ottaviani, the letter that would officially open the process that would examine his works. But Mgr Le Couëdic thought this letter was insulting and he refused to forward it to Rome. So the Abbé de Nantes decided to forward it himself and to publish it in his Letters to My Friends. This was the act which earned him the punishment of suspens a divinis in the diocese of Troyes, August 1966. Despite its evident injustice, he submitted to this sanction, not wishing to give any appearance of dissidence, a crime that has always filled him with horror.
However, his request for a trial by Roman tribunal – to determine the orthodoxy of his doctrinal position and his written works – was favourably accepted by the Holy Office (now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). The Abbé de Nantes was summoned there on two occasions, in April and in July 1968. Ultimately the only accusations retained against him were those of irreverence and disobedience. And for these he was asked to make a general retraction of his criticisms against the Pope and Vatican II. He was also required to make a total and unconditional submission to his bishop and all other ecclesiastical authorities. But as this request was clearly exorbitant and exceeded Church law, he refused to sign the text. Shortly afterwards he received an ultimatum from Cardinal Seper, to which he replied in July 1968 with a "Profession of Catholic faith". In this profession, he protests his strict obedience to the Vicar of Christ and the bishops, successors of the Apostles, but within the just limits fixed by the Law. The Congregation decided not to go ahead with the dogmatic judgement promised in 1966. Instead it concluded the examination of the case with a Notification published in the Osservatore Romano in August 1969. This Notification refers to the Abbé de Nantes' refusal to retract his so-called "errors" – errors which were nowhere explained, and for good reason! – and his refusal to retract his "grave accusations of heresy against Paul VI and the Council". However, no penalty was inflicted upon him, except for the observation that "in rebelling in this way against the Magisterium and the Catholic hierarchy, the Abbé de Nantes disqualifies (sic) the totality of his writings and activities". The sanction of disqualification is one hitherto unknown to canon law. The term is clearly understood in the world of sport, but its use within the context of ecclesiastical discipline is strange and uncertain to say the least. Curiously, the Documenta 1966-1985, although published in a very official manner by the Congregation, fail to cite for this period the documents relating to this trial, a trial unique in the Church's history.
In October 1967 the bulletin Letters to My Friends was transformed into a periodical with a new title: The Catholic Counter-Reformation in the 20th Century. Its first edition began with an Open Letter to His Holiness Pope Paul VI. In 1969-70 the Abbé de Nantes founded the "League of the Catholic Counter-Reformation". He precisely defined the nature of its combat which existed on two fronts: that of heresy and that of schism. As well as struggling against theories contesting the validity of the new liturgical and sacramental formulas – theories that lead directly to the rejection of the sacraments and the abandonment of the Church – he undertook at the same time a series of conferences and articles throughout the whole of France, denouncing the new catechisms: the so-called Fonds commun, the Dutch Catechism, Pierres vivantes, and various others... For 25 years – from November 1972 to the autumn of 1996 when he was forced to stop – he gave monthly conferences at the Mutualité hall in Paris (five hundred seats). In these conferences he dealt with religious and political current affairs. They were followed by courses on theology, philosophy, morality, or the sacred history of France, subsequently published on audio and video cassettes.
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Despite the Abbé's detailed and well-substantiated criticisms over these last
thirty-five years, the authorities in the Church have consistently refused to use their powers
to deal objectively with his accusations. Instead of taking up his arguments
in their own right (argumentum ad rem), they have preferred to attack his person
(argumentum ad hominem). Hence, they have directed their wrath against his
alleged subjective attitude, his "tone", his "contentious spirit",
etc. This was particularly apparent in 1968 when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith examined his complaints against Vatican II and Pope Paul VI. Instead of
condemning his alleged "errors", the Congregation contented itself with
stating that he had been disqualified... rather as if he had been a professional
sportsman who was not abiding by the rules of the game!
In 1958 the Bishop of Troyes, Mgr Julien Le Couëdic, admitted him into his
diocese for the purpose of founding a community of missionary monks, disciples of Father
de Foucauld. There, for five years, he was the country parish priest
at
Villemaur-sur-Vanne. During this time he formed the Order
of the "Little Brothers of the
Sacred Heart" and he published monthly letters of spirituality "to my
friends" (Lettres à mes amis). In the Letters for 1959 he presented a
rigorous theological analysis of the imminent crisis in the Church using terms that
could today be called "prophetic". Then, in 1963, as a result of his firm
opposition to the French clergy's complicity in the abandonment of Algeria to Communist
and Islamic terrorists, the Bishop of Troyes deprived him of his parish ministry and all
jurisdiction in his diocese.
The Abbé de Nantes has always acknowledged the reigning Pope and the bishops
in communion with him as the true pastors of the One and Holy Roman Catholic Church.
During this period he continued untiringly to appeal to their sovereign authority against
the increasingly widespread disorder of ideas and morals. On 11 April 1973, accompanied by
his brothers and a delegation of the faithful, he went to Rome and presented Pope Paul VI
with a book of accusation that requested an infallible judgement from him on his own
writings, speeches, and acts. This was the 
Throughout this period successive bishops in the diocese of Troyes observed a
sort of status quo with regard to the Abbé de Nantes and his community. They
expected that Rome would eventually deal with the doctrinal questions at issue in a
decisive and definitive manner. Without showing any undue harshness, they maintained the
suspension decreed by Mgr Le Couëdic in 1966 – although this suspension had
virtually been extended to the whole of France after the Bishop of Grenoble, the diocese
of his incardination, had refused to renew his celebret.
It was only after the publication of such a warning – immediately broadcast
by the local press and La Croix – that the "accused" received a
letter addressed to him personally from Mgr Daucourt. This was then followed up by an
interview at the bishop's palace on 1 August 1996. Without any legal reasons, the Abbé de
Nantes was ordered to leave Maison Saint-Joseph at the earliest opportunity and to retire
permanently to a monastery. He was to have no communication with his brothers and his
friends. If this order were not executed punctiliously, he was told he could expect the
inevitable eruption of a media scandal.
Mgr Daucourt insisted and on 9 May 1997 he despatched a penal Precept against him,
stating that he must: cease his accusations of heresy against Vatican II and the Pope;
stop "inciting the laity against the Holy See"; put an end to the bulletin The
Catholic Counter-Reformation in the 20th Century; depart for ever from the
communities he had founded; and observe the suspens a divinis imposed on him in
1966. Failure to comply would lead to his being barred access to the sacraments of Penance
and the Eucharist. After the Abbé had announced his intention to appeal to Rome against
this exorbitant demand, in accordance with his rights enshrined in Canon Law, the Bishop
followed his Precept up with a Decree on 1 July 1997, which sought to put into effect the
sanctions threatened in the Precept, despite the fact that, according to Canon Law, the
Abbé de Nantes's appeal to Rome had now introduced a suspensive effect ipso iure
into the Bishop's disciplinary process against him, thus rendering this further action
uncanonical.