1. La Crise dans l'Église et Mgr Lefebvre, Published by Cerf, 1976. 2. On 26 February 1992, during a private conversation with Father Congar, in his room in l'hôpital des Invalides. 3. CRC no 113, January 1977, p. 1-4, extracts. 4. Quoted in CRC no 114, February 1977, p. 1. 5. Quoted i n CRC no 114, February 1977, p. 1-2. 6. Quoted in CRC no 115, March 1977, p. 1. 7. Quoted in CRC no 115, March 1977, p. 2-4. 8. Published by Cerf, 1950. 9. La Crise dans l'Église et Mgr Lefebvre. 10. CRC no 105, May 1976, p. 1. 11. Cf. CRC no 74, November 1973, p. 11. 12. Here we interrupt the quotation from the account of the debate published in CRC no 115, March 1977, p. 2-4. 13. Ibid., p. 4. 14. CRC no 115, March 1977, p. 15. 15. In the acount of the controversy on 8 February as published in the Documentation catholique (1977, p. 347-349), the debate had been very badly summarised. The Abbé de Nantes' arguments had been misreported and Father Congar's admissions were passed over in silence. So the Abbé de Nantes addressed a letter of protest to its editor and his letter was published in full in number 1720 of that periodical (1977, p. 495-496). 16. Doc. cath., 1977, p. 497. 17. CRC no 118, June 1977, p. 15. 18. Doc. cath., 1977, p. 412. 19. CRC no 118, June 1977, p. 1-4. 20. Current affairs conference on 12 May 1977; CRC no 118, p. 1-4. 21. Doc. cath., 1977, p. 565. In the weekly The Pilgrim, Mgr Gilson, auxiliary bishop of Paris, rightly stressed that the Abbé Ducaud-Bourget had evaded "the essential questions. For example : on the assistance of the Holy Spirit at the Council and the on the validity of the Mass of Paul VI." 22. Doc. cath., 1977, p. 565. 23. CRC no 118, June 1977, p. 15. 24. Doc. cath., 1977, p. 566. 25. Quoted in CRC no 120, August 1977, p. 1. 26. CRC no 120, August 1977, p. 1-2, extracts. 27. As the Superior General of the Benedictine Congregation in England, Dom Butler had taken part in the proceedings of Vatican II. He had showed himself resolutely in favour of the orientations that John XXIII had given the Council at its opening, on 11 October 1962. At the end of the first session, on 7 December 1962, had not Dom Butler declared in the aula that the Council would assume "a grave responsibility by proceeding to dogmatic definitions. We should, therefore, display extreme prudence in this matter. The Church is currently in a ferment of research; there is an authentic theological movement. It is a sign of life, an action of the Holy Spirit. A Council definition cannot be allowed to halt or contradict sound theological research." (Doc. cath., 1963, col. 61) It would not be in vain to recall that, in this month of December 1962, the voice of the defenders of Catholic dogma had been snuffed out at the Council. On 3 December, Mgr Musto, Bishop of Aquino (St Thomas's homeland), was unable to finish his intervention in the aula: "In a tone of accusation", reported Henri Fesquet, "this prelate declared it unacceptable that, in the precincts of Saint Peter, voices should be raised attacking the essential principles of the institutional and hierarchical Church, and he criticised certain bishops for not taking their role seriously enough. Finally, the speaker quoted a text from Saint Paul [the beginning of Chapter 4 of the Second Letter to Timothy] on the duty to fight against false teachers who turn away from the truth in their undiscerning itch for novelty, and he appealed to the vengeance of God. Murmurs then arose in the assembly, several bishops rapped on their desks with their pastoral ring, and others exclaimed "unacceptable!" The president of the session interrupted this out of place speech and was applauded by the assembly." (Doc. cath., 1963, col. 44) 28. Apologia pro vita sua, CRC no 110, October 1976. 29. In other words, he ought to be deposed. 30. Quoted in CRC no 121, September 1977, p. 1. In the English edition of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, this letter will not be published until October 1986, that is after the death of Mgr Butler on 20 September 1986. As David Boyce will write, "The fact that Mgr Butler did not wish his letter to be published in the English edition of the CRC, though happy that it should be in French, says something for that greater freedom which all the sons of the Church were going to enjoy following the Council, dixit Paul VI." CRC no 193, English edition, October 1986, p. 127) 31. Cf. supra, chs 2 and 6. 32. Cf. CRC no 94, July 1975, p. 11. 33. CRC no 121, September 1977, p. 1-2, extracts. Three years later, in a further letter addressed to Mr David Boyce, dated 3 January, Mgr Butler will write this : "Vatican II promulgated no new infallible definition. In fact, it studiously avoided doing so. There is, of course, a lot of non-infallible teaching scattered about in the Acts of Vatican II. Such teaching does not require the assent of faith. It is commonly taught that non-infallible but official teaching calls, from the hearer, for religiosum obsequium – the exact translation of this term is disputed, but I hold that it means "religious deference" – the sort of deference that a child would give to its parent even when it had strong reason to think that, on a particular issue, the parent had made a mistake. You in the CRC do not deny any infallible definition by Pope or Council. You are therefore not heretics. (I fear that you would perhaps be guilty of a schismatical act if you attended a Mass which was banned by the diocesan bishop – or by the Pope). Not being heretics, and if you are not acting schismatically, you remain full members of the Church – and are even entitled to your views about Vatican II, if these views are held responsibly, humbly, and with continuing "obsequium" towards legitimate authority, and with due consideration for the scandal that open opposition to the hierarchy may cause." Quoted in CRC no 151, French edition, March 1980, p. 12; CRC no 193, English edition, October 1986, p. 31-32. 34. Cf. Letter to our friends no 26, 15 September 1978. 35. The Secretary of State. 36. “Deus, qui inter summos sacerdotes famulum tuum N. ineffabili tua dispositione connumerari voluisti: praesta, quaesumus, ut, qui unigenitii Filii vices in terries gerebat, sanctorum tuorum Pontificum consortio perpetuo aggregetur. Per eundem Dominum…” 37. "Oraison funèbre de Paul VI", CRC no 132, supplement, August 1978, p. 1. 38. The Abbé de Nantes expressed the greatest reservations about the testimony of Mgr Pasquale Macchi, private secretary of Paul VI. He considered that the events reported in his account of the Pope’s last hours and death (cf. Doc. cath., 1979, p. 596-597) were not authentic. 39. Doc. cath., 1978, p. 751. 40. Cf. "Réponse à des questions sur la mort de Paul VI", during the 9th Congress of the CRC, 2 October 1978. L 25, 7th cassette. 41. Cf. Doc. cath., 1978, p. 751. 42. Supra, p. 132. 43. In his brief account of the last hours of Paul VI, Peter Hebblethwaite seems to have tried to explain and justify this ringing of the Pope’s alarm clock at the alleged time of 9.40 pm. He writes that Mgr Macchi had not known how to wind it up and that he had misset the previous alarm time: “They [Pasquale Macchi and Dr Renato Buzzonnetti] did not dare touch the alarm clock that he [Paul VI] had bought in Poland in 1924. Paul [sic] was the only one who knew how it worked […]. It was 11 o’clock. Paul opened his eyes and looked at his Polish alarm clock: it read 10.45 am. ‘Look’, he said, ‘my little alarm clock is as tired as I am.’ Macchi tried to wind it up but confused the alarm setting with the winding mechanism.” (Paul VI. The first modern Pope, New York, Paulist Press, 1993, p. 709) 44. In the Liber accusationis in Paulum Sextum, the Abbé de Nantes had in fact written: "I am ready to be anathematised for the sake of my brother in the faith, Pope Paul VI! I would willingly give my life and my salvation for his betterment and conversion, for on him depend the temporal and eternal fate of billions of human beings redeemed by the Blood of Christ, my brothers..." (page 96) 45. Cf. supra, p. 109 and 339. 46. This was Brother Bruno. 47. "Oraison funèbre de Paul VI", CRC no 132, suppl., August 1978, p. 1-2, extracts. 48. Letter to our friends no 26 dated 15 September 1978. 49. CRC no 57, June 1972. 50. CRC no 133, Sept 1978, p. 3. 51. Cf. CRC no 51, Dec 1971. 52. CRC no 30, March 1970, p. 8. 53. CRC no 48, Sept 1971, p. 4. 54. Ibid. 55. CRC no 60, Sept 1972, p. 1. 56. CRC no 60, Sept 1972, p. 1. 57. CRC no 97, Oct 1975, p. 14. 58. Current affairs conferences of 20 October and 8 December 1977. 59. Quoted in CRC no 133, September 1978, p. 3. 60. CRC no 134, October 1978, p. 6. 61. CRC no 133, p. 1. 62. CRC no 134, October 1978, p. 4. 63. CRC no 133, September 1978, p. 15. 64. Supra, p. 477. 65. Two years later, our Father sent me [Brother Francis] in my turn to visit Father Congar at the hôpital des Invalides in order to obtain his account of several conciliar events, especially regarding the signatures added to the Acts of Vatican II. On 26 February 1992, in the course of a conversation that lasted forty-five minutes, Father Congar's attitude and reactions seemed similar to those that Brother Bruno had witnessed. The "father of the Fathers of the Council" displayed no regret, no remorse. He was proud to have been "persecuted" under Pius XII. As at Annecy, he recognised that the novelties of Vatican II had not been made the object of dogmatic definitions. So it was not a matter of infallible teaching. "Right from the beginning", he explained to me, "John XXIII had said, 'There will be no infallible definitions. All that has already been done by previous Councils. It is quite enough'." But on the subject of the debate surrounding Religious Liberty, Father Congar had the impudence to claim that there was no possibility of bringing an infallible judgement to bear in such a matter: "There was no reason to make a dogmatic definition of it, an ex cathedra definition like that of Vatican I. There is no reason. Such definitions only relate to dogmas and possibly certain moral principles." Honoured with the cardinal's red hat in 1994, Father Congar will die the following year, without having renounced his doctrines. Some of our Father's earlier warnings then took on a striking character. Thirty years earlier, when the conciliar euphoria was at its height, the Abbé de Nantes had concluded a severe critique of reformism as follows: "When Father Congar is presented before God, he will doubtless have many crowns on his head, including the one of which he makes so much, that of being a martyr in the Church. But I fear that he will have his hands empty. By introducing such a principle of reform into the Church, he has launched a movement of criticism and subversion which is now sweeping all before it. There is a direct relationship between the sale of his books and the apostasy of priests who have gone over to protestantism, the decrease in conversions, and the spread of doubt and indifference, all of which signal the certain fruits of his chimerical zeal." (Letter to my friends no 176, July 1964) |