CHAPTER 9

THE SCHISM OF MGR LEFEBVRE:
« THE BAD BREAK »

     TO make known his Priestly Fraternity and his seminary at Econe, in 1972 Mgr Lefebvre started to give a large number of conferences throughout France. Now, when one of his listeners happened to ask him about the doctrinal combat of the League of the Catholic Counter-Reformation in the 20th century, he criticised its founder for having entered into open opposition with Pope Paul VI : "A son", said Mgr Lefebvre, "does not criticise his Father."

     The former missionary bishop¹, who had distinguished himself in the Council chamber amongst the defenders of Catholic faith and law, had since the close of Vatican II adopted an attitude quite different from that of the Abbé de Nantes: he officially presented himself as a son obedient to Pope Paul VI and submissive to the authorities of the Church.

THE FOUNDING OF THE SEMINARY AT ECONE IN 1970

     Mgr Lefebvre had spoken to the Bishop of Fribourg, Mgr Charrière, of his desire to establish a house of priestly formation, and in June 1969, shortly after the promulgation of the novus ordo missae, he was authorised by him to realise such a foundation in his diocese. In the autumn, a year after he had resigned his responsibility as Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers², Mgr Lefebvre received ten seminarians into the Don Bosco House at Fribourg.

     At that time the battle over the Mass was being vigorously waged by the traditionalists, and Jean Madiran, as we have stated before, was astonished at Mgr Lefebvre's reserve and silence on this matter. He had not even given any public support to the petition of Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci. Let us also recall how, in March 1970, Mgr Lefebvre had appeared very put out when the Abbé de Nantes visited him in Rome, and had not spoken to him of his plan to found a Priestly Fraternity, even though at that very moment he was preparing to draw up its statutes. It is true that the Abbé de Nantes would undoubtedly have shown little enthusiasm for such a foundation³. For, as was only too clear, to bring such an enterprise to a successful conclusion, Mgr Lefebvre would have to desert the public doctrinal combat against the new conciliar religion.

     The decree of erection of the "International Sacerdotal Fraternity of Saint Pius X" was signed by Mgr Charrière on 1 November 1970. The Bishop of Fribourg stated that the statutes proposed by Mgr Lefebvre were noted to be in accordance with the decree of Vatican II, Optatam totius, concerning seminaries. He therefore approved them and confirmed them for a period of six years ad experimentum. Moreover, during that autumn of 1970, while the Fraternity of Saint Pius X was constituted a society under diocesan law in Fribourg, Mgr Lefebvre opened a seminary at Econe, that is to say in the neighbouring diocese of Sion, with the verbal permission of the local bishop, Mgr Adam.

IN REBELLION AGAINST THE NEW RITES

     The work of Mgr Lefebvre prospered very rapidly. Vocations were numerous and there were no financial problems. In the summer of 1971 new buildings were constructed at Ecône, allowing a complete cycle of studies to be provided for about a hundred seminarians.

     It is true that Mgr Lefebvre’s foundation was officially submitted to the hierarchy, but if the seminary experienced such great success, this was due to the fact that the former head of the conciliar minority rejected the liturgical reform and the new pastoral theology issuing from Vatican II.

     During his conference tours in France, the founder of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X presented and justified his work by presenting it "as certain that there was no true Mass except the old one, and that there was no true priesthood nor true seminary outside of Ecône and the priests formed in that tradition which he claimed to hold on to"⁴. But let us listen to him instead:

     "Seminaries are non-existent, since the definition of the priest and the true concept of the priesthood have been abandoned. I admit that I find myself incapable, truly incapable, of founding a seminary with the New Mass… The present problem of the Mass is one extremely serious for the Church… All the endeavours to recapture what is being lost, to reorganise, reconstruct and rebuild, have been stricken with sterility, since we no longer have the true source of holiness which is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Now that it has been profaned, it no longer gives grace, it no longer channels grace.⁵"

     Thus the founder of the seminary of Ecône was very firm, even extreme and excessive, in his opposition to the new rites. But he limited his rejection of the Reform to the domain of the liturgy alone. He would not go back any further to the source of the evil and its real essence. He abandoned the great dogmatic debates and did not explicitly and publicly attack the doctrinal novelties of the Council.

     The Abbé de Nantes will later learn one of the reasons that had led Mgr Lefebvre to adopt such an attitude : during the sessions of Vatican II, the bishop had signed every one of its acts. He had therefore been restrained and even bound, since the close of that disastrous Council, by his own signature.

     In 1972 the French bishops, including the new bishop of Fribourg, Mgr Mamie, began a secret war against Mgr Lefebvre’s foundation. In October, during the plenary assembly of the French episcopate, the bishops undertook not to incardinate in their dioceses young men formed in "wildcat seminaries"⁶.

WITH PAUL VI'S BLESSING
AND IN SUBMISSION TO THE HOLY SEE

     In January 1973 the Abbé de Nantes openly announced the resolution he had been forming over several months of presenting the Pope with a libellus of accusation against his Person, and he now invited his friends and readers to join him in this process by entering his "Roman Legion". Now, at the beginning of this same year, Mgr Lefebvre made a conference tour through Brittany, and on the evening of 16 January he was received at Saint-Brieuc by a friend, M. Charles Raffray. As the bishop had not heard the Abbé de Nantes’ conversation with Jacques Chancel on the radio (France-Inter), the householder’s son, Hervé Raffray, who had come specially to listen to him, offered to give him an account of it. Mgr Lefebvre interrupted him: "Has the Abbé de Nantes confirmed that he will go to Rome?" – "Yes, Monseigneur." A long silence ensued. At the end of several minutes, M. Hervé Raffray, hoping to elicit a reaction, allowed himself to tell him: "Monseigneur, it is vital for the Abbé de Nantes to go to Rome with his book of accusation, since no one more qualified than him is willing to take this step." The bishop remained silent, glacial.

     The position publicly adopted by Mgr Lefebvre that year, 1973, will diverge radically from that of the Abbé de Nantes. In March, while the theologian of the Catholic Counter-Reformation was drawing up the Liber accusationis in Paulum sextum, Mgr Lefebvre was writing to his benefactors that the aim of his foundation was "to continue the Church of all times in submission to the Holy See and to safeguard our faith"⁷. Thus he was claiming to preserve and defend the faith whilst remaining docile to the highest authorities in the Church. Several months later, while members of the CRC league were distributing the Liber accusationis, Mgr Lefebvre told his friends and benefactors: "We have been assured through a highly placed intermediary that the Holy Father blesses our apostolate.⁸" What is more, he claimed that the hostility of the French episcopate to his work was beginning to crumble:

     "Without doubt our firm stand on the Tradition of the Church inspires a certain reservation in some of our bishops . For it looks like we are stubbornly opposed to the conciliar aggiornamento. However, the special success of the Saint Pius X Fraternity poses them problems. Why is it that young men with a serious vocation present themselves in such large numbers to this seminary, while the majority of seminaries are emptying? As the years go by, we sense that the initial opposition is changing into curiosity and surprise. Already several bishops have come to see us or have written to us asking for priests. During the last two months we have had five requests asking us to supply seminary teachers and offering parishes to us.

     "From Rome we have received indults which lead us to conclude that our Fraternity has the right to incardination, even though this is only a diocesan right.⁸"

     At the beginning of February 1974, our Brother Joseph of the Blessed Sacrament visited Ecône to take part in the ceremony where his brother was to receive the soutane.

     Brother Bruno accompanied him and was received by Mgr Lefebvre into his office for a few moments. Thus he was able to question him about the Liber accusationis, whereupon Mgr Lefebvre replied, "The Abbé de Nantes should not have mentioned me in his Liber. There was no need for him to mention me." The bishop showed Brother Bruno the page containing the two following paragraphs:

     "Mgr Marcel Lefebvre was one of the two or three among the 'minority' at the Council whose head remained clear and whose courage did not fail. On that account alone he would have deserved a Cardinal's hat at your hands, even had it been only to show your continuing paternal feelings towards all your children or as a sign of clemency to the vanquished. Instead, he has been the constant victim of your silent but attentive wrath. You were glad to see his downfall, and saw to it that he should leave Rome. You allowed him to be ostracised by the French episcopate.

     "His Seminary does not owe you anything, except that you were not able to inhibit its birth. But our bishops have all sworn never to accept any of its priests. For them this radiantly Catholic institution has become the 'wildcat seminary'. Once again, we ask where the hatred lies. On which side are discord and the intention of schism, which side has offended against its brother? I know full well that, in agreement with Cardinal Villot and the French episcopate, you are seeking to destroy this little seedbed of vocations, this refuge of true Christian freedom, this haven for priests after God's heart. Should you succeed in doing so, your schism will only become the more manifest.⁹"

     That was the only remark made by Mgr Lefebvre concerning the contents of the Liber. As for the canonical process of accusation, he did not even mention it. It was clear that the founder of Ecône had no wish to give up his reserve, especially in the presence of an emissary from the Abbé de Nantes! He was anxious to remain officially submitted to the Pope.

     In the refectory, at the table where the teachers sat, Brother Bruno was placed to the right of Mgr Lefebvre, and he heard him expressing his pleasure at the generosity of his benefactors. The bishop saw in this a proof that God was blessing his work. "There are billions, billions!" he confided to our brother. Then the conversation turned to the Bishop of Lille whom Mgr Lefebvre had recently met. And the latter ruled categorically, "Mgr Gand no longer has the faith, he is no longer a bishop." A staggering affirmation! Mgr Lefebvre declared the Bishop of Lille to have fallen from the episcopate because he had heard him making statements that seemed to him heretical! This peremptory judgement was particularly surprising for Brother Bruno, since he had been present at a discussion between Mgr Gand and the Abbé de Nantes. Now, in listening to them, it had seemed to him that the Bishop of Lille did indeed have the faith¹⁰!

     During their stay at Ecône, Brothers Bruno and Joseph noticed that the seminary did not practise the intelligent traditionalism which the Abbé de Nantes had been seeking to promote for over twenty years. When they visited the seminary, one of the professors, Dom Guillou, showed them the library and explained to them that it did not contain a single work published after 1962! At Ecône, therefore, they ignored the acts of Vatican II so that they might not have to criticise them… Clearly, it was not by proudly ignoring the conciliar Reform that one could form priests… of the Counter-Reformation!

     On the day after the ceremony, 4 February, our brothers joined the seminarians in a magnificent walk in the mountains. Brother Bruno had a long discussion with one of them and he was frightened to find that he was resolutely Kantian. This was the Abbé Klaus Wodsak, who had been exempted from his philosopy courses because he had posed too many objections to the Thomist professor, Father Bruno Salleron…

     This worrying fact was indicative of the weakness and ambiguity of Mgr Lefebvre’s work.

THE LEAGUE OF THE CATHOLIC COUNTER-REFORMATION
SERVING THE COMMON GOOD OF THE CHURCH TODAY

     Nevertheless, none of this prevented the traditionalists, exasperated by the postconciliar anarchy, from turning their eyes with a growing sympathy towards the seminary at Ecône. They waited in hope for the new priests formed by Mgr Lefebvre to come and restore the security and peace of the parishes of former times. They imagined that Mgr Lefebvre was in the process of saving the Church, since he was organising "a supplementary, truly Catholic Church of the unchanged Latin rite within the midst of the modernist reformed Church"¹¹. This idea, records our Father, "was received favourably and fervently by traditionalists of all shades, even by the majority of the members of our CRC League, very much against my wishes"¹¹.

     That is why, on 1 April 1974, in a letter to his friends, the Abbé de Nantes re-emphasised the constitutive and therefore essential purpose of the League. Its vocation in the Church – if not by right, at least in fact – was "the service of the common good", whereas many other traditionalists were only attached to "a particular good".

     "We have been led to make this choice", he explained to them, "more by the logic of our passion for the real and essential good of the Church and of souls than by a deliberate choice on our part. It was necessary to struggle against the decadence by denouncing the Reform of the Church; and we could not denounce the latter without designating those who were responsible for it, cost us what this may. In short, if we wished to remedy the effects, we had to go back to the highest and most general causes: the Council and the reigning Pope.

     "It is certain that our CRC, because it goes back to the true causes and takes issue with those who are supremely responsible, and because it refuses to be distracted from this purpose and to relax its grip for any pretext, has an efficacy out of all proportion to the means it employs. It has also, by this same fact, an assured future: it will succeed by very reason of the infallibility promised to the Church. That is something which should encourage us all to pursue this action.

     "What we have undertaken – to pass from the disastrous Vatican II to a redeeming Vatican III, and to provoke the Church into condemning the errors and abuses of Paul VI, so that essential papal authority may be restored – is difficult, seemingly unachievable, and quite beyond the understanding of most people. Good Catholics are much more interested and excited about so many other things which we have been obliged to neglect : the Mass, the catechism, schools, seminaries, Latin, Gregorian chant, pilgrimages… Ultimately we could be accused of doing nothing, whilst the others are fighting on all fronts and obtaining results which, though limited, are real and beneficial.

     "What you have already understood by yourselves, I wanted to state explicitly : we have sacrificed everything, we have neglected everything, as we know to our cost, solely to serve the present common good of the Church. That is our vocation today, our mystic immolation. Share this consecration with us yourselves – I venture to encourage you – by sacrificing everything else in order to bring all your energies to bear on what is essential at the present time. Present this oblation to God through the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and pray that this total gift, accepted by our Father in Heaven, may end in the victory of the Counter-Reformation through a holy Pope and a glorious Council, leading to the Restoration of the Roman Catholic Church. Then, when our joy has been regained, we will once again be able to think about our Order and about your beloved persons, and how to serve all their spiritual and temporal interests.¹²"

"THE YEAR OF RECONCILIATION WILL HAVE ITS VICTIMS"

     As desired by Paul VI, the Holy Year celebrated in 1975 was to be a year of reconciliation, with God no doubt, but also with our fellow men, all men! in respecting their beliefs, passionately recognising their dignity, satisfying their rights, and struggling for their collective, economic, social and cultural liberation¹³…

     Now, since the beginning of 1974, the Abbé de Nantes had predicted that this reconciliation in love would have "its victims"¹⁴. Then, following the plenary assembly of the French episcopate at Lourdes in November, he showed why and how this jubilee year of "reconciliation" would be one of exclusion for traditionalists. In his conference at the Mutualité on 12 December, he explained that the recent ruling by the French bishops on the use of the Missal of Paul VI was to be the cover for an implacable persecution against priests who refused to celebrate the novus ordo. It was true that the bishops had mentioned the accusations of the traditionalists, but they had rejected them with offensive disdain.

     "Certain Catholics of good faith", they had declared, "are currently deceived by a propaganda that seeks to make the rejection of the liturgical reform willed by Vatican II a criterion of orthodoxy. They go so far as to cast suspicion on texts in the Missal of Paul VI and in particular on the Eucharistic Prayers approved by the Holy See, claiming that the content of these texts does not conform to the faith or, at least, that it is ambiguous and can favour heresy. The bishops of France cannot tolerate such accusations which run counter to the truth. It is not possible for someone to proclaim his fidelity to the Holy Father and at the same time to propagate these calumnies.

     "The episcopal conference of France, in communion with the universal Church gathered around the Successor of Peter, hopes that the faithful whose judgement may have been abused will be enlightened by this clarification and will henceforth participate with faith in the Eucharistic sacrifice¹⁵ according to the current rite of the Roman Church.¹⁶"

     The old Roman rite was more than ever proscribed. "It is a juridical ruling, not a pastoral one", remarked the Abbé de Nantes. "The bishops oblige, forbid and condemn in the name of canon law, basing their legislative decisions on Rome and claiming the infallible sovereign authority of the Pope.¹⁷"

     Moreover, on 12 December, at the Mutualité, the Abbé de Nantes warned his audience that the visit of the two apostolic visitors to the seminary at Ecône in November appeared to him to be a very bad sign. It was true that those close to Mgr Lefebvre said that the report of the two investigators would be very favourable. But the Abbé de Nantes was persuaded that this was "in no way a routine canonical visit. This enquiry", he explained, "must be understood in the context of a process aiming to eradicate the Sacerdotal Fraternity of Saint Pius X. The countdown to the end of Ecône’s legal existence has probably already started."

     The forebodings of the Abbé de Nantes were confirmed by an inidiscreet remark from an archbishop who informed him that Rome was determined to decree the closure of the seminary at Ecône within three months.

MGR LEFEBVRE'S PROFESSION OF FAITH
OF 21 NOVEMBER 1974

     From the opponents of the liturgical reform, corrupt and corrupting, there was soon a deplorable defection : that of a prestigious Benedictine abbey. "The nuncio", reported the Abbé de Nantes in January 1975, "has passed the papal ultimatum on to Dom Roy, the Reverend Abbot of Fontgombault, and Fontgombault has reneged on its promises and abandoned the Mass of all times to adopt the new rite of Paul VI. This volte-face is a scandal. Such an act of renunciation turns them into liars, for it suggests that in this case obedience is obligatory and that even a very powerful abbey is forced to yield, whereas it is only a matter of their own interests, feeding arrangements and monastic comfort. They ‘prefer the honour that comes from men’, etc. (Jn 12.43).¹⁷"

     Unlike Dom Roy, the founder of the seminary of Ecône seemed decided on resisting the Roman injunctions. In January 1975, the review Itineraires published the profession of faith which Mgr Lefebvre had signed and sent to every member of his Fraternity a few days after the two apostolic visitors, their Lordships Descamps and Onclin, had left Ecône. Here is the text in full, dated 21 November 1974:

     "We hold firmly with all our heart and with all our mind to Catholic Rome, Guardian of the Catholic Faith and of the traditions necessary to the maintenance of this faith, to the eternal Rome, mistress of wisdom and truth.

     "We refuse on the other hand, and have always refused, to follow the Rome of neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies which became clearly manifest during the Second Vatican Council, and after the Council, in all the reforms which issued from it.

     "In effect, all these reforms have contributed and continue to contribute to the destruction of the Church, to the ruin of the priesthood, to the abolition of the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacraments, to the disappearance of the religious life, and to a naturalistic and Teilhardian education in the universities, in the seminaries, in catechetics: an education deriving from Liberalism and Protestantism which has been condemned many times by the solemn Magisterium of the Church.

     "No authority, not even the highest in the hierarchy, can compel us to abandon or to diminish our Catholic Faith, so clearly expressed and professed by the Church’s Magisterium for nineteen centuries.

     "‘Friends,’ said St. Paul, ‘though it were we ourselves, though it were an Angel from Heaven that should preach to you a gospel other than the gospel we have preached to you, a curse be upon him’ (Gal 1.8).

     "Is it not this that the Holy Father is repeating to us today? And if a certain contradiction were to manifest itself in his words and deeds as well as in the acts of the dicasteries, then we cleave to what has always been taught and we turn a deaf ear to the novelties which destroy the Church.

     "It is impossible to profoundly modify the lex orandi without modifying the lex credendi. To the New Mass there corresponds the new catechism, the new priesthood, the new seminaries, the new universities, the ‘charismatic’ Church, Pentecostalism: all of them opposed to orthodoxy and the never-changing Magisterium.

     "This Reformation, deriving as it does from Liberalism and Modernism, is entirely corrupted; it derives from heresy and results in heresy, even if all its acts are not formally heretical. It is therefore impossible for any conscientious and faithful Catholic to espouse this Reformation and to submit to it in any way whatsoever.

     "The only attitude of fidelity to the Church and to Catholic doctrine appropriate for our salvation is a categorical refusal to accept this Reformation.

     "That is why, without any rebellion, bitterness, or resentment, we pursue our work of priestly formation under the guidance of the never-changing Magisterium, convinced as we are that we cannot possibly render a greater service to the Holy Catholic Church, to the Sovereign Pontiff, and to posterity.

     "That is why we hold firmly to everything that has been consistently taught and practised by the Church (and codified in books published before the modernist influence of the Council) concerning faith, morals, divine worship, catechetics, priestly formation, and the institution of the Church, until such time as the true light of tradition dissipates the gloom which obscures the sky of the eternal Rome.

     "Doing this, with the grace of God, the help of the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, and St Pius X, we are certain that we are being faithful to the Catholic and Roman Church, to all of Peter’s successors, and of being the ‘faithful dispensers of the mysteries of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit’. Amen.¹⁸"

     In his editorial to the Catholic Counter-Reformation, under the title "In communion with Paul VI?" the Abbé de Nantes will publish and comment on this "profession of faith", explaining in particular to what extent this text could and should be considered as a manifesto of the Counter-Reformation.

     "Never before has Mgr Lefebvre or any other bishop in the world expressed so vigorously – in the name of his very loyalty to Catholic Rome, the eternal Rome – his opposition to that other Rome which is protestant, liberal and modernist, the Rome of the Council and of all the reforms that issued from the Council. It is a rejection that is justified both a posteriori (this conciliar Reformation leads to the demolition of the Church) and a priori (it falls under the hammer of several previous condemnations made by the infallible Magisterium).

     "Mgr Lefebvre states – as a bishop fully conscious of the gravity of his words – that it is not possible for a Catholic to accept this Reformation in any of its parts without abandoning himself to the heresy with which it is wholly poisoned. The sole path to salvation today lies in the categorical rejection of this Reformation. One must continue to live as a Catholic according to tradition, without concerning oneself with the reforming Pope and his Council. One must simply wait in peace for the dark smoke of Satan to disperse in the skies above Rome."

     However, "Mgr Lefebvre does not specifically equate the heretical and truly diabolical Reformation being pursued today with the Acts of Vatican II – which, unlike ourselves, he does not explicitly reject¹⁹ – nor with the Discourses and Acts of Paul VI or even his deepest thoughts and convictions. To do so would apparently be to go too far in his view, so he deliberately leaves a margin of vagueness and uncertainty between that which he anathematises and the persons themselves, the moral person of the Ecumenical Council and the person of the reigning Pope.²⁰"

     The last part of this commentary will show to greater advantage if deferred till later.

     It may be noted that in publishing his "Profession of faith" in the review Itineraires, Mgr Lefebvre had begun to cast off his previous reserve. He began to reveal convictions that up till then he had concealed or had only displayed with discretion and restraint, hoping in this way that the hierarchy would show more tolerance to his foundation. From now on he would put forward doctrinal reasons to justify his rejection of the liturgical reforms. However – and this was very regrettable – he did not relinquish his deferential attitude to Paul VI. He remained fixed in this attitude of official submission to the Pope, as though he were incurably marked and practically paralysed by the formation he had received at the French Seminary in Rome, where papal infallibility and the sanctity of the Eternal City were exalted to an exaggerated degree²¹.

     In the beginning of that year 1975, Mgr Lefebvre gave his moral backing to the association "Credo", founded by the writer Michel de Saint-Pierre, whose first article, dealing with the statutes, indicated that the action he was going to undertake would be "carried out in perfect communion with the Sovereign Pontiff, guardian and defender of the Catholic faith".

MGR LEFEBVRE'S PRIVATE CONVICTIONS ABOUT PAUL VI

     Such an attitude, such a determination not to confront the Pope head on, was all the more regrettable in that Mgr Lefebvre had in fact no illusions about the personality of Paul VI. Remember the judgements he had expressed in 1967 in his letters to the Abbé Felix Bourdier and to the Abbé de Nantes²².

     Mgr Lefebvre used to read the writings and listen to the recordings of the conferences given by the theologian of the Catholic Counter-Reformation. He even happened to say in private that he approved of the Liber accusationis and that at heart he was not unhappy that the Abbé de Nantes had taken to Rome such an accusation against Paul VI.

     Let us quote here what he wrote on 9 June 1973 to one of the benefactors of his seminary, a member of the CRC League:

     "Your generosity towards the seminary touches me deeply and your encouragement is very precious to me.

     "When all is said and done, your conformity to the thinking of the Abbé de Nantes is certainly correct, and whatever comes of this process in Rome, one result is certain : the problem will have been made public.

     "One day it will have to be resolved. For we cannot indefinitely place our trust in him who has the greatest responsibility for the destruction of the Church and of Christian civilisation.

     "The denial of the whole Tradition of the Church stems in fact from a senseless pride. That is why, whatever the cost, we must continue to build on Tradition in every domain. We cannot be wrong about this.

     "There will be no excommunication [of the Abbé de Nantes], have no fear. And anyway, it would have no value. It would need a serious offence to justify it. Where does the offence lie? In speaking the truth.²³"

     In the course of several private conversations, Mgr Lefebvre would sometimes have some terrible words for Paul VI, which tell us about his private convictions. He expressed judgements, sentences of condemnation, which the Abbé de Nantes would never have allowed himself to formulate. One day, at Vannes, a member of the CRC League heard him criticise the Pope so forcefully that he asked him, "Do you think that Paul VI will be converted?" Mgr Lefebvre replied, "He does not deserve to".

     It seems that from one year to the next Mgr Lefebvre was always expecting that the Pope would soon die²⁴. He was counting on this, or at any rate hoping that his death would occur before his personal relations with him deteriorated further.

     At the beginning of 1975 the Abbé de Nantes observed that, by not publicly citing any dogmatic disagreement with the Pope, Mgr Lefebvre was placing himself at the mercy of his arbitrary behaviour. He was also convinced that in the coming conflict over the canonical existence of the seminary at Ecône, its founder would be the loser if he did not rapidly and radically change his attitude towards Paul VI.

     As we have already recounted, the Saint Pius X Fraternity was founded in evident submission to the authorities of the Church and was provided with the required authorisation. Thus, Paul VI could legally, whenever he saw fit, withdraw this authorisation and order that the seminary at Ecône be closed and the Fraternity dissolved. Mgr Lefebvre would then be faced with the following alternative : Either submit and accept the disappearance of his work, or rebel and commit himself to a series of disciplinary offences leading to schism.

     But the founder of the seminary at Econe might still have averted this dilemma. On 6 January 1975 in Paris, during his news conference, the Abbé de Nantes suggested that someone "more worthy than himself" should make a public and canonical appeal to the tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura against the ruling of the French bishops which proscribed the old Roman Mass. "There does not exist", he explained, "an ecclesiastical tribunal superior to that of the Apostolic Signatura. Such a recourse is addressed to the very person of the Roman Pontiff. Now, although Paul VI wants to see his new rite adopted throughout the whole Church, he will not however dare to formulate a firm and precise ban against the old rite. Therefore, it is at the court of Rome that the French bishops’ abuse of power should be attacked and their heretical intentions exposed and denounced. If the authoritarianism of the reformers is checked, if Paul VI is forced to retreat over this matter, it will perhaps be the beginning of the Counter-Reformation in the Church." It was clear that the Abbé de Nantes was hoping that Mgr Lefebvre would place himself as quickly as possible, legitimately, canonically, and publicly, in a position of strength against Paul VI.

     In his Letter to our friends on 11 February 1975, the theologian of the Counter-Reformation was even more explicit about the opportunity that Mgr Lefebvre had of henceforth entering into open opposition against Pope Paul VI:

     "All the appearances would seem to suggest that we are losing the battle and that the banning of the Mass of Saint Pius V, the ultimatum already issued against Fontgombault and the next one soon to follow against the Saint Pius X Seminary at Ecône, will be the final blow brought by the Pope and the bishops against the last bastion of traditionalism. Nevertheless, I believe that on the contrary we are close to triumphing. How can this be? It is very simple.

     "To the extent that the ban [of the Mass of Saint Pius V] is made formal, that is to say put into legal form, it would show how unacceptable and totally illegitimate it is – and it would force even the blindest traditionalist to question the Pope about his ‘ecumenical’ passion, his destructive desires, and his sectarian despotism. Either one gives in to the episcopal and papal injunction, as at Fontgombault. Or one resists and crosses this Rubicon, this barrier which up to this day one had refused to clear, in order to accuse the Pope himself and to resist him to his face; it is then that one enters the Counter-Reformation. This is what is now taking place at Ecône.

     "Please God that, as in the game of the forbidden circle, it may not involve any jumping too far and going beyond our Counter-Reformation into a Counter-Church, a total revolt, a schism, which would in its turn be quite unjustified and indeed more criminal than the crime being denounced.

     "The hour of the CRC has sounded, when the abuse of power by the reformist sect becomes evident. In order for us to succeed, it only requires that our refusal to give in to the injunctions of the Pope and the bishops is expressed in dogmatic and juridical terms, obliging the Roman authorities to justify the unjustifiable. Being unable to do this, they will retreat. Through fear of being thwarted, I am sure that Paul VI will desert the party and leave the bishops in the cold. He will assure people that he never made the change of the missal obligatory… Today we are stronger in this affair than is the coalition of our adversaries. That is why, moreover, the defection of Fontgombault seems deplorable and truly scandalous to me, and why at the same time Econe’s resistance seems to me wise, prudent, and courageous. Their position is impregnable. It is only necessary that they should not maintain a traitor in their midst, and now this process must be conducted with the full doctrine which our CRC, alone, has developed over the last ten years : that of a legal and legitimate opposition to every claim or action of Paul VI which is heretical, schismatic or scandalous.²⁵"

"STRIKE AT THE HEAD!"

     Such was the eloquent title of the editorial of the Catholic Counter-Reformation in the 20^th Century which the Abbé de Nantes published in the first few days of February 1975.

     Having mentioned the latest scandalous acts of Paul VI and demonstrated that the disorder, perversion, and inversion even, were all down to the head of the Church, the theologian of the Counter-Reformation remarked: "It was predictable that the ones to capitulate to the first injunction of superior Authority, would be all those who swore to resist the grip of Masdu, to remain faithful to the Church of their baptism, to the Mass of their ordination, to the Credo of Nicaea… but always ‘in perfect communion with the Sovereign Pontiff’, in ‘total submission to his wishes’. Now, the Pope's wish is to invert all these things. So they have been hoodwinked.²⁶"

"A BISHOP MUST BREAK COMMUNION WITH PAUL VI"

     The Abbé de Nantes finally put this anguishing question: "Has the whole thing become impossible to resist? Can no one in the world any longer do anything to oppose this ruin?" To which he went on to answer:

     "Yes, there remains a weapon, a deed, an action. To strike at the Head of him who has the Powers of a Lamb, but who speaks in the language of the Dragon (Ap 13.11). Regicide, the remedy to the tyrannical anarchy of power in the State, is forbidden to the faithful of the Church, no matter how bad or wicked the Pope might be. It belongs to them to pray and to wait patiently in hope. The public accusation of the Head of the Church for heresy, schism and scandal, is the province of the priest, the theologian, someone capable of knowing the reality of the situation with certainty and of drawing up a canonical act, the Libellus accusationis. That is what we have done. But if it is not even acknowledged and if the supreme Judge, flagrantly abusing his position of authority, disregards it, the process is suspended before it has even been opened.

     "There remains then but one final remedy, a heroic one, the only one dreaded by Him who has knowingly and obstinately inverted the true meaning of his divine and apostolic mission. It needs a bishop – one who is himself a successor of the Apostles, a member of the teaching Church, a colleague of the Bishop of Rome and ordained like him to the common good of the Church – to break his communion with him for as long as he fails to prove his fidelity to the responsibilities of his supreme pontificate.

     "The Pope who receives Jews and speaks with of them of reconciliation, whilst denying Christ, is heretical.

     "The Pope who practically abrogates and forbids the Mass of the Roman Church promulgated and granted to the universal Church for all times by Saint Pius V is schismatic.

     "As long as you spare the Head, you will not control the members. As long as you obey the Head, you will be crushed by the claws and the teeth of this Masdu. One must strike the hydra of the Antichrist at its Head, in order to free the Church of Jesus Christ.²⁶"

     At the end of the first page of this editorial, the Abbé de Nantes quoted in an inset a wonderful text from Saint Augustine against schism²⁷.

     Then, as a postscript, he published a notice concerning the pilgrimage to Rome organised by the association "Credo". "Certainly, our friends will take part in great numbers in this pilgrimage to Rome presided over by Mgr Lefebvre. They will play an important role in the ‘conscientisation’ of the masses of pilgrims.²⁶"

     It was evident that the Abbé Georges de Nantes hoped Mgr Lefebvre would declare his withdrawal of obedience from Paul VI as quickly as possible, breaking his communion with him according to the ancient formulas of Saint Basil²⁸ or Saint Columbanus²⁹. Yes, this was vital, before there broke out a disciplinary conflict with the bishop of Fribourg and the Roman authorities.

     To operate a rupture of communion – one that was public, solemn, and motivated by a complaint for heresy, schism and scandal against Pope Paul VI, held in legitimate suspicion by this fact – would have led Mgr Lefebvre to at last have had a share in the great work of the Catholic Counter-Reformation in the twentieth century. He would even have become its leader since, being a member of the episcopal body, he belonged to the teaching Church.

     This canonical process for heresy brought against the Pope would also have guaranteed Mgr Lefebvre judicial immunity. Such a process effectively suspends every disciplinary sanction taken against the accuser until a dogmatic sentence is given.

THE ABBÉ DE NANTES VISITS ECONE IN FEBRUARY 1975

     To encourage Mgr Lefebvre to perform such an act, to explain to him how urgent and necessary it was, the Abbé de Nantes wished to speak to him personally. He therefore visited Ecône in mid February.

     The League of the CRC took advantage of his visit to Switzerland to organise a dinner-debate at Lausanne on 13 February and a conference the following day at Sion. Brothers Bruno and Joseph, who accompanied their Father during this journey, presented themselves at the door of the seminary at Ecône several hours before him, on Thursday 13 February. Let us listen to Brother Joseph telling Brother Christian, in a letter dated Sunday 16 February, about their arrival and their stay at the seminary:

     "It was the hour for dinner. While Brother Bruno was admitted to the table where the professors sat, I was shown to a seat among the seminarians, right next, of course, to my Brother Michel, who was very surprised to see us. The welcome was very cold. None of the seminarians spoke a word to us and several, it seems, gave us an icy look." But these "first impressions were not sufficient in themselves for us to form any firm conclusions". On our arrival we had been informed "that Mgr Lefebvre had left for Rome and would be away until Monday 17 February, even though, at the very beginning of the week, he had been advised of our visit. When our Father and Monsieur Perrin arrived, we held a short conference and explained to them our first impressions. Our Father was not surprised at the news of the Monsignor’s absence. We would simply have to wait for him. All the same, there was little cause for rejoicing.

     "The next day, Friday, our Father celebrated the holy Mass in the crypt. At breakfast and during the whole of the morning, the Father’s presence did not seem to interest them very much, given that none of them visited him. Right up to noon on Saturday the attitude of the professors and seminarians, with a few exceptions, seemed very hostile to us.

     "During recreation, things turned out a little better. Several seminarians gathered round our Father on one side and round Brother Bruno on the other, in order to learn some news about the Father’s conference at Sion on Friday evening. About one hundred people had taken part; the subject was the Holy Year. The debate at the end was very interesting; there were lots of intelligent questions and several subscriptions.

     "Our stay at Ecône comes to an end this evening." It "leaves us with little hope of a change in their attitude on the question of the Pope"³⁰.

     As Mgr Lefebvre was absent, the Abbé de Nantes was received by Canon Berthod. Together they reviewed the situation of the Fraternity and the menaces weighing over it. Finally our Father asked him:

      "Why does Mgr Lefebvre not attack, in the court of Rome, the French bishops’ decision to forbid the celebration of the old Roman Mass? He should address a recourse to the Apostolic Signatura against the ruling of the French bishops. Mgr Lefebvre will then have the support of all traditionalist priests. If such a process were initiated, Paul VI would be in a difficult position. I know his psychology. He has asked the bishops to do what he dare not undertake himself, and he will not have the audacity to confirm the proscription of the old rite.

     – Do you really believe, replied Canon Berthod, that it is still possible to achieve anything at Rome?

     – Yes, you must act now and obtain the opening of a process at Rome, before a decree to suppress your Priestly Fraternity is published.

     – No, it is not worth the effort. We will obtain nothing. We will not be listened to. There are no judges in Rome any longer."

     On Monday 17 February, a few minutes before leaving Ecône, the Abbé de Nantes had a very brief interview with Mgr Lefebvre who clearly viewed him as someone unwelcome. Our Father was therefore unable to speak with him as he had hoped, and the bishop did not discuss his meetings at Rome nor his appearance on the previous Thursday, 13 February, before the members of the ad hoc commission of cardinals designated by Paul VI, namely three cardinals from the Curia: Garrone, Tabera and Wright³¹. He was also careful not to tell him that he had been summoned to Rome on 3 March for a second interrogation.

     It was probably in the course of his second appearance that the cardinals brandished before him the editorial of the Catholic Counter-Reformation "Strike at the Head", which had appeared a few days earlier, insisting that Mgr Lefebvre state, yes or no, whether he was going to oppose Paul VI³². "Are you going to break your communion with the Pope?" – "Oh, no!" exclaimed the poor bishop³³.

     The reader will have noticed that our Father had arrived at Ecône precisely on Thursday 13 February. How can one not see in this coincidence of dates a very special design of the good Providence? Although he had no knowledge of the timetable for the appearances of the traditionalist bishop before the commission of cardinals – and was even unaware of its existence – the Abbé de Nantes had wished to meet Mgr Lefebvre at a moment which seems capital to us today: immediately after his first appearance and three weeks before the second.

     Alas! on his return to the seminary at Ecône on Monday 17 February, Mgr Lefebvre disdained the theologian of the Counter-Reformation, who would have counselled him to take advantage of his appearances before the commission of cardinals to engage in the doctrinal debate, a debate that was essential and primordial. He would have strongly recommended him not to limit the discussion to "mixed matters", namely the liturgy, the sacraments, in short, questions of rites, but to resolutely pursue the controversy into the domain of dogma, and to attack the evil at its primary source, that is to say in the Acts of the Second Vatican Council and in the teachings of Pope Paul VI.

3 MARCH 1975, AT ROME, MGR LEFEBVRE
IS PRESSED TO DISOWN THE ABBÉ DE NANTES

     The almost complete transcription of the second interrogation of Mgr Lefebvre was published in 1976³⁴. On reading this text³⁵, one observes how the cardinals, who had clearly received precise directives from the Pope, were in the grip of an obsession : they were fearful that Mgr Lefebvre would join in the doctrinal combat of the Abbé de Nantes. Also they wanted him at all costs to declare himself in communion with Paul VI, and they even pressed him to write to the Pope to explicitly express his union with His Holiness. There is little doubt that they were acting under instructions!

     In the course of the interrogation, the cardinals constantly came back to the questions which the Abbé de Nantes had discussed in depth in his writings. Now, if Mgr Lefebvre, in order to refute the debatable theories and the erroneous and peremptory affirmations of these prelates, had based himself on the demonstrations of the latter, if he had referred to the solutions provided by him, he would easily have come away victorious in each of the jousts that marked this encounter.

     But see how instead Mgr Lefebvre attempted to defend himself. Here are some of the outstanding scenes of this long conversation of 3 March 1975³⁶:

     Cardinal Garrone: As you were informed during the last meeting, your position as formulated in the manifesto [the declaration by Mgr Lefebvre of 21 November 1974 which we have quoted above], is unacceptable. A text like your manifesto is harmful to the souls of the young men being prepared for the priesthood. I do not say that one cannot do good with the Mass of Pius V; but if you join to it a kind of radical doubt regarding the authority of the Church, you are not preparing priests of the type wanted by the Church. You insinuate doubts into the very conscience of these young men which make them believe that it is for them to judge. It is they who shall decide what the Church thinks. Withdraw this text. It is unacceptable.

     Monsignor Lefebvre: So, according to you, there is no crisis. There exist no reasons for one.

     Cardinal Garrone: The crisis exists, but it is not connected to the Council. The Council was willed by the Pope and inspired, I think, by the Holy Spirit. The Church had great need of it. And if the Church needed it, it is because she found herself in dramatic circumstances.

     Monsignor Lefebvre: The Pope said himself in December that, in the Council, there were texts which necessarily lent themselves to different interpretations. He said so himself.

     Cardinal Garrone: He is the only judge.

     Monsignor Lefebvre: But these things are not insignificant!

     Cardinal Garrone: You have written in your manifesto: "If a certain contradiction were to manifest itself in his words and deeds as well as in the acts of the dicasteries, then we cleave to what has always been taught..." You think therefore that the Pope might have said things which are contrary to the faith. You state it in formal terms. M. Lemaire himself does not accept your statements.

     Cardinal Tabera: Your Excellence's attitude is contaminated by other attitudes which surely it does not share. For example, everyone is drawing a parallel between you and the Abbé de Nantes.

     Monsignor Lefebvre: Ah no! not that! If someone writes this and alludes to my person, I am not responsible for it. It gives me great displeasure to be associated with the Abbé de Nantes.

     Cardinal Garrone: And the pilgrimage to Rome? Was there any contact between you³⁷?

     Monsignor Lefebvre: It is true that that is what some have said, and it displeases me greatly. When he made an allusion to me and also to the seminary of Ecône, I was disturbed. I wrote to him and told him not to liken me to himself in his writings. What can I do about it? He is a strange man. I have nothing to do with him. I refuse to allow him to speak in my Seminary. He used to come every week, but he went away very angrily when I refused to allow him to speak³⁸.

     I refuse to allow anyone in my Seminary to say anything that is in any way irreverent about the Holy Father.

     Cardinal Garrone: In this matter, it is obedience that counts above all, and in this text your young men can only find so many reasons to disobey. One can be in no doubt about this. In fact, you write: "If a certain contradiction were to manifest itself in the words and deeds of the Pope…". There we have it... their motive for disobedience!

     Monsignor Lefebvre: This example is phrased in the future tense and specifically concerns communion in the hand. You say that this is of little importance, but for me it is a serious matter.

     Cardinal Tabera: Excellence, might not this be an opportunity for you to write a letter to the Pope, a letter that would say, "I am in sincere and cordial union with Your Holiness". For our part, we recognise the existence of abuses, abuses against which one cannot oppose by fighting the Pope and the Council.

     Monsignor Lefebvre: For me, it is not a question of fighting, but of seeing what is the "true" reality. There may be things in the Council that are ambiguous. The Pope has said so himself.

     Cardinal Garrone: That is all well and good, Excellence. If you are happy to limit your thoughts to this, how could you write things of this kind (the manifesto)?

     Monsignor Lefebvre: I wrote them in a moment of indignation provoked by what the Visitors had said. It gave me pain to see Visitors from Rome say to my seminarians "that truth is not something one can put in a box". I myself heard Mgr Descamps speak about the ordination of married men. On this matter, he was to declare very spontaneously: "Whether you wish it or no, it will have to happen!" And these men came from Rome. They took no account of the fact that at the Synod the Pope had said the contrary.

     I cannot accept these things, for they are wholly contrary to what the Pope said two years ago. For these reasons I indicated my displeasure and stated that I did not accept a Rome of this kind – a Rome that told me things that were contrary to doctrine... That is why I took up my pen and wrote: "I do not accept the modernist Rome that brings me such things." I do not accept things of this kind… It is true that I expressed myself a little sharply, but I was still suffering from the shock of this impression.

     Cardinal Tabera: According to you, the [conciliar] Reformation derives from liberalism. It is completely poisoned. But if one cannot accept the doctrine of the Church at a particular moment, as in the present case, it is all over with the magisterium.

     Cardinal Garrone: If this (the manifesto) represents your real state of mind, it cannot serve as the basis for either a seminary or a confraternity. It is impossible, for it would mean admitting that one can build on the foundations of a radical contestation of the Magisterium of the Church. This is the state that things have come to. If you see liberalism everywhere, I for my part must tell you that I cannot find a worse variety than this (that of the manifesto).

     Monsignor Lefebvre: On certain points of the Council, one can express… reservations.

     Cardinal Garrone: But you write: "The whole Council". You do not accuse the Council of simply being a little tendentious, but of being fundamentally orientated in a modernist and protestant direction. What impression can a seminarian reading your "manifesto" draw from it? It will be the source of the orientations which will inform his conscience. Will this young man be formed in the Catholic Church? I say no! He will not be a Catholic but a sectarian. He will follow Mgr Lefebvre and not the Pope.

     Monsignor Lefebvre: No, that is an exaggeration. I do not say that one must follow me, but the Magisterium.

     Cardinal Garrone: But this (the manifesto) says the opposite!

     Monsignor Lefebvre: It is not so!

     Cardinal Garrone: You recognise the Magisterium of yesterday, but not that of today.

     Monsignor Lefebvre: The Church is thus: she keeps her tradition and cannot break with; it is not possible.

     Cardinal Garrone: Who then is the judge of fidelity to tradition? Who then is the judge? Not you, nor I! It is the Council, it is the Pope!

     Monsignor Lefebvre: The Pope himself draws distinctions in the Council, whereas you accuse me of…

     Cardinal Garrone: There is absolutely no relationship between the observations you are making, observations which might be justified, and the crass statements contained in your document.

     Monsignor Lefebvre: I recognise that my "declaration" is an exaggeration, but I believe that it is no less of an exaggeration to wish at all costs to give the impression that no crisis exists, that there is nothing to reform, that all the difficulties can be explained away through the general situation of the world and our materialist society, and that one does not know exactly where the current crisis of the Church originates from.

     Cardinal Garrone: In any event, the causes are [not] located³⁹ where you put them.

     Monsignor Lefebvre: But how can one find a remedy to these things, to this crisis?

     Cardinal Garrone: Certainly not by diminishing the authority of the Pope in the minds of your young people.

     Monsignor Lefebvre: That is not what I am trying to do.

     Cardinal Garrone: No? You write that if you came to discover in the words or the writings of the Pope something that contradicted tradition, it would be necessary to stick to tradition and to abandon the Pope. That is what you say.

     Monsignor Lefebvre: No. I said this in relation to communion in the hand. In that case…

     Cardinal Garrone: That is not what you have written. But anyway, communion in the hand has been prescribed by the Pope. One cannot condemn a custom practised in the Church for centuries. It makes no sense. One may consider it inopportune, but not as something to be condemned. As for whether it is opportune or not, the Pope has left this matter to the judgement of the bishops. What is serious, is the presumption of those who claim that the Pope has no right to change anything in the liturgy.

     We agree with you about various things; for example, about the existence of a profound crisis, a crisis in which the Church finds herself. But we take issue over the causes through which you attempt to explain the said crisis. One should not try to find these in that Magisterium which you are so critical of. According to you, the culprit is the Magisterium. And that is the worst species of liberalism.

     Monsignor Lefebvre: Nevertheless, in the Magisterium there are things that are contradictory.

     Cardinal Garrone: That is what you say and it is the worst form of liberalism. One cannot say that contradictions exist in the heart of the Magisterium.

     Monsignor Lefebvre: So many opinions contrary to the Magisterium have been spread.

     Cardinal Garrone: The hypothesis of a heretical Pope is found in theology.

     Monsignor Lefebvre: If that is true, I am not aware of it.

     Cardinal Garrone: Oh yes you are! One learns it in theology.

     Monsignor Lefebvre: For my part, I was only making an allusion to certain bishops.

     Cardinal Garrone: Your judgements, however, implicitly lead to this conclusion.

     Monsignor Lefebvre: But why do you refuse to allow me to experiment with tradition? Today people carry out every possible kind of experiment. Freedom is granted to every daring venture. And now, faced with a traditional experiment which seems to have succeeded, which bears good fruit, you want to suppress it.

     Cardinal Garrone: It is an experiment that is carried out against the law. Think, Monseigneur, about those who try to divert your efforts in a direction totally opposed to the Holy Father. They are capable of distorting your work. You say that these are only abuses, but consider, for example, the Abbé de Nantes, who has formally accused the Pope of heresy. There will always be men capable of abusing even the best initiatives. I think that we have more or less exhausted all the arguments that can be developed. We have had the opportunity to verify our judgement on many points. It only remains for us now to make an objective report for the Sovereign Pontiff, who will tell us what our attitude should be. In any case, I cannot see how your works will be able to continue, if Mgr Mamie (the Bishop of Fribourg) withdraws his approbation. As for us, we believe there is a living Magisterium; but as for you, you in your text deny this. That is clear. You may object that I am exaggerating, but objectively that is how things stand. You say to your seminarians that one must conform in the first place to tradition. And as for the Pope, if he does not conform to tradition, or if he does not seem to conform to it, then one must choose tradition against the Pope.

     Monsignor Lefebvre: Evidently. But one can state a priori that such a situation will never arise with the Pope. That is plain. There may always be different interpretations about texts which…

     Cardinal Garrone: The best example is the Mass. You say to your seminarians: "Do not adopt this Mass; it is dangerous. Let us take up the old Mass that the Pope wrongly thought fit to modify." Where will these young men get... where will they find their rule of faith from now on?

     Mgr Lefebvre: You are not being realistic. You should see the letters that arrive on my desk from every corner of the world, in which people beg me to do something to help them.

     Cardinal Garrone: Fine. But your manifesto is not the solution. The solution cannot consist in disobedience to the Pope.

     Mgr Lefebvre: But neither does the solution lie in the anarchy that currently reigns in the celebration of the Mass, with all these Masses for little groups⁴⁰…

     At the end of this interview, the cardinals might well be satisfied. They had accomplished their mission without difficulty. The Pope had no reason to worry : Mgr Lefebvre had decided not to join in the doctrinal combat of the Abbé de Nantes. He would not be making his own the accusations that the theologian of the Catholic Counter-Reformation had made against the Pope.

     In the course of this conversation, Mgr Lefebvre had not ceased to draw back, to take flight, to beat a retreat. Finally, he even retracted his "profession of faith" of 21 November 1974. In listening to his successive replies and observing the way he wriggled and manoeuvred, always with an eye to reconciliation, it appears that the traditionalist prelate was guided and governed, not by dogmatic requirements, but by the concern to preserve and to save his work at all costs.

     Cardinal Garrone, the reader will have noticed, reproaches Mgr Lefebvre vehemently for refusing to submit to the Rome of today in the name of the Rome of all times. He attacks and contests the claim of the unhappy bishop to discern by himself which teachings of the Pope conform to the Tradition of the Church and which are contrary to it.

     It would be highly instructive to compare Mgr Lefebvre’s "profession of faith" with the formula of unity written and then published by the Abbé de Nantes⁴¹ one month before the apostolic visitors arrived at Ecône. One would observe that the latter had foreseen the unfortunate error of Mgr Lefebvre who substituted his own personal judgement for that of the Roman Church.

     By explicitly accusing the Pope of heresy, the Abbé de Nantes was asking the Pope to judge himself. He was appealing to the infallible Pope about the fallible Pope, thereby recognising the fact that Paul VI was the sovereign judge in his own case. When it was objected to him that the novelties propagated by the Council and by Paul VI were claimed to be the work of the Church’s Magisterium, he demonstrated that such a claim was both fraudulent and malicious:

     "I submit to the Pope's Magisterium", he stated, "provided that he exercise it. Paul VI has only to take a moment, to launch an anathema, to define a dogma. Let him pronounce, by virtue of the infallibility of his solemn Magisterium, on each and every one of the novelties that I impute to him as heresy, schism and apostasy, and I will abide by his sentence, persuaded that I have been totally misled, and there will never be any question of my not submitting as a member of the Roman Catholic Church to his sovereign Authority."

MGR LEFEBVRE'S REPLY
TO THE ABBÉ DE NANTES, 19 MARCH 1975

     Furthermore, the Abbé de Nantes considered that Mgr Lefebvre would undoubtedly be vanquished should he profess the least theological error, concerning the Mass for example. Now, in that year, 1975, the validity of the new ordo missae continued to be contested and even denied by extremist integrists, such as the Abbé Ducaud-Bourget. This contestation was extremely serious, and the bishops, taking issue with these rebels, rightly declared: "He who declares the Mass of Paul VI to be invalid cuts himself off from the community of the Church.⁴²"

     What then was the belief and the position of Mgr Lefebvre concerning the validity of the new ordo missae? Certain integrists had attested that he was opposed to the teaching of the Abbé de Nantes on this subject. Now, the bishop did not deny what they said. He let them say these things. Evidently he was reluctant to offend these extremists, even if he was not absolutely convinced by their theories⁴³. So little by little he let himself be influenced and carried away by the integrist movement of opinion to the point where he became its prisoner.

     Furthermore, his practical conduct, his public and exclusive attachment to the old Roman Mass, and the reasons he gave his benefactors to justify the founding of his seminary, led one to believe that he doubted the validity of the new rite of Mass⁴⁴.

     Therefore, on 6 March 1975, in an attempt to hold him back from the slope of schism and to encourage him to break with the extremist integrists, the Abbé de Nantes wrote him the following letter, which he published several days later in the Catholic Counter-Reformation:

     Mgr Lefebvre will reply to the Abbé de Nantes in a letter dated 19 March which he will send not to its addressee, but to Jean Madiran, and the latter will publish it immediately as a loose supplement to Itineraires. Here it is:

     There we have a disavowal which is violent to say the least.

     So what were Mgr Lefebvre’s motives? By the publication of such a letter, was he hoping to evade the threats hanging over his work? As far as we are aware, he had not complied with the pressing recommendation put to him Cardinal Tabera during the discussion on 3 March. He had not written to Paul VI: "I am in sincere and cordial union with Your Holiness." Nevertheless, by broadcasting his letter to the Abbé de Nantes three weeks later in the supplement of Itineraires, he publicly declared his "utter disagreement" with the latter. Was he seeking to reassure and placate the cardinals and Pope Paul VI himself? It is probable.

     But the disavowal was monstrous. One could not more greatly distort and betray the thinking and conduct of our Father. "Know that if a bishop breaks with Rome, it will not be me." Mgr Lefebvre was openly accusing the Abbé de Nantes of pushing him into schism, whereas the latter was in fact seeking to lead him away from such dissidence. He had suggested to him, not to break with the Roman Church, but to operate a severance of communion with Paul VI, motivated by a complaint against him for heresy, schism and scandal.

     If the Abbé de Nantes, when commenting on his profession of faith, had expressed "what he was hoping for, what he would like to have seen, but not what was", this was done intentionally in order to encourage the founder of the seminary at Ecône to place himself canonically in a position of strength against Paul VI. Let us quote the passages from our Father’s commentary⁴⁷ which the unhappy bishop disapproved of:

     "Mgr Lefebvre is here expressing, still in a conditional form, a firm resolve by himself and the members of his Fraternity, to resist any orders that they might be given, even by the supreme Authority of Rome or the Pope himself, forcing them to submit to all these postconciliar reforms which, for them, go completely against traditional and preconciliar dogma, morals and liturgy.

     "Despite its veiled form, this is a reasoned declaration of a withdrawal of obedience from a pontifical and collegial authority which is devoting itself unswervingly to the enforcement of this Reform in the life and institutions of the Church. 'A categorical refusal to accept this Reformation' can only be maintained by total disagreement, dissension, legitimate suspicion and the withdrawal of obedience from a tyrannical Authority which abuses its power.

     "It is not a schism. Mgr Lefebvre take care to point this out. There is no question of doubting the Church, nor of questioning the authority of the Vicar of Jesus Christ or the other bishops who are successors of the Apostles in the whole vast domain where such authority is legitimately and canonically exercised. No, we adhere fully to that longstanding and universal communion which defines the Roman Catholic Church.

     "Neither is it a rebellion. Faced with cancerous innovations in the heart of the Church, invasive and unrelenting innovations in doctrines, decisions and activities which are incompatible with our dogmatic, moral, liturgical, and canonical Traditions, we are merely acknowledging the fact of an enforced rupture of communion, of a mutual excommunication, the initiative and responsibility for which does not lie with us.⁴⁸"

     For having been unwilling to formulate a statement of a rupture in communion with Paul VI, for having refused to "strike the Head" before the authorities withdrew the decree of erection from his Fraternity, Mgr Lefebvre will soon find himself caught in the snares of disciplinary sanctions from which he will no longer have a legitimate reason to escape.

     In that spring of 1975, the major contradiction of the prelate – officially obedient to the Pope, but in rebellion against the new rites promulgated by him – was clearly set out in an article of the very weighty Civilta Cattolica of 1 March.

     "The author of this article, Father Caprile", explains the Abbé de Nantes, "was, under Pius XII, and still is, so it is said, the private secretary of superior Authority. Speaking of the liturgy, the Reverend Father lists the opponents of the Mass of Paul VI, mentioning our CRC and its January editorial on page 2 first. We are the only ones mentioned by name in France, at the head of this bogus, not to say grotesque, list. In Switzerland only the seminary at Ecône is mentioned. The Reverend Father treats us as "absolute or quasi absolute immobilists" and he intends to demonstrate to us that the Mass of Saint Pius V is forbidden and that of Paul VI obligatory.

     "Although he piles one text on top of another, his only serious argument is this: ‘It is difficult to see how one can proclaim one’s personal fidelity to the Pope and at the same time be the propagandist for such calumnies’, as ‘that the texts of the New Mass are ambiguous and suitable for promoting heresy.’ That is evident!

     "In fact, if one is faithful to Paul VI, one must accept the Mass of Paul VI on trust! But if, through fidelity to Jesus Christ and to the Church of all times, one practises the separation of body – I do not say divorce –, the rupture of communion – I do not say schism –, with the supreme Autodemolitionist of God’s Church, then it is only logical that one should abominate his ambiguous liturgical inventions and anathematise his heretical article 7.⁴⁹"

     In his editorials for the spring and summer of 1975, the Abbé de Nantes will apply himself to revealing and very vigorously denouncing the latest scandalous acts of Pope Paul VI, especially his odious betrayals of Christendom and his appalling policy of collaborating with the bolshevik persecutors. At the end of each of his analyses, he would always arrive at the same conclusion:

     "If a bishop, if a national episcopate, had risen up against Paul VI and his chimeras, just like that, with no other direct motive than the honour due to God and the love of the Church, whom the Pope is handing over to her enemies, and pity for the peoples whom his diplomacy is throwing to their martyrdom… if one part of the Church through the voice of its episcopate had refused communion with the purveyor of the world communist revolution, Pope Paul VI, yesterday in Portugal, today in Vietnam, and tomorrow in Spain or Ireland… then the bishops would have dismissed Casaroli, Poggi, Hussler and other Soviet agents; the bishops of these threatened countries would not have been like mute dogs, but would have proved themselves just defenders of their people; the heads of State would have been able to count on Catholics instead of considering them as the most dangerous traitors; every nation would have put up an armed defence of its independence and legitimate order without being condemned by the conscience of the world; and finally Christendom would be saved in its strongest parts and would spread peace.

     "It is true that in Chile the entire Catholic people did save themselves from communism in spite of Paul VI and Cardinal Silva Henriquez. But my view is that their safety will not last if the Church in Chile does not contest pontifical instructions and rise up openly against Roman treason.

     "And here I am not speaking of Pope Paul VI’s immense betrayal of the duties of his office as the defender of faith and morals and as the supreme guardian of the sacraments and prayer of the Church. For whether a Pope betrays or maintains the Church, everything he does stands together.

     "Either the Church will end by excommunicating the Pope, or the Pope will end by dragging the world to its ruin. There is absolutely no question of breaking with Rome and of founding another Church. But when there is a torrent of blood dividing the Church, then it is our supreme duty to be out of communion with the Judases who are handing over their brothers and their Master, in order that we may remain in the communion of the martyrs.

     "The greatest shame the Church has ever suffered is the fact that over the past ten years not one bishop has dared to undertake this saving action.⁵⁰"

"LET HIM BE FOR YOU AS AN EXCOMMUNICATE"

     In this summer of 1975 the Abbé de Nantes cried out loud and clear: "John- Baptist Montini is now for us like the pagan and the publican (Mt 18.15-17), like one excommunicated.⁵¹" Thus he renewed the accusation that he had formulated for the first time in 1967, when he had written in his Letter to my friends no 240: "Between the Pope and us, between this Council and us, there is a kind of permanent excommunication.⁵²"

     Such an acknowledgement of a rupture of communion with Paul VI and with the reformist bishops was in no way a rupture with Christ and with His Holy Church. After the unworthy disavowal of Mgr Lefebvre, the Abbé de Nantes thought it would be very useful to demonstrate this truth again to his readers, which he did in his editorial of July 1975 entitled: "Let him be for you as an excommunicate".

     Straightaway, he makes a very telling comparison:

     "If, in a household, the husband imposes the presence of some strange woman on his wife, beats her, and is only interested in his illegitimate children… then she, whose husband is no more than a torturer and a mocker, has the right, according to the Gospel, to leave the home. This is called bodily separation. But for all that, she still has no right, whatever the cost to herself, to divorce and to take another husband, as though the first one no longer existed for her. Even though he is unfaithful and refuses to fulfil his duties and to exercise his role as a husband and a father, he nevertheless retains his title and his right, albeit in injustice.

     "Every contract entered into by human beings contains a set of reciprocal rights and duties of which the famous dialectic of Master and Slave is the barbarous caricature. In every human contract, each of the contracting parties is left the possibility of reappraising their commitment if the other party has unilaterally violated it or quite simply renounced it. Solutions vary according to the form and matter of the contract. Even the most sacred commitments allow for solutions of this kind, else they might become an inhuman slavery. Our hierarchy would be more honourable if it recognised this.

     "If we apply these quite general considerations to our contract of baptism and confirmation, whose twofold character is indelible, whose commitments are irrevocable and absolute, and if for many of us we add our religious vows, our priestly ordination, we must acknowledge that we are bound for ever and very closely to the Catholic Church, to the Sovereign Pontiff and to the bishops in communion with him, who have become our leaders and our pastors for always. Whence comes this terrible constraint that they can exercise over us, we who lack the option of exchanging them for others.

     "Bound to them for ever, we may never change them. To break this bond in order to discover somewhere a little peace and freedom, this would be schism, entailing spiritual death. We do not want that. They know this and they abuse the fact.

     "This is where we are faced with an alternative: either we enter into dishonourable and criminal complicity with this Pope, these bishops, these agitating and corrupting theologians, or else we embrace the equivalent of bodily separation, which in ecclesiastical terms is called excommunication. My husband always remains my husband, but I leave the marital home in order not to have to submit to his violence and his contempt, in order not to make myself an accomplice of his horrors, a companion who condones his debauchery. Pope Paul VI and the bishops of his reformist party are still our pastors, but we will never obey them if it means corrupting the innocence of children, dissolving Catholic belief and discipline and, worst of all, abandoning the world to communist brutality.

     "If there were a law court, a tribunal, to investigate this case, as there is in any other matter, – but the fact is that there is no longer such in the Church at this time, the High Judge being both judge and defendant in our dispute – then it would be necessary to determine to whose honour and advantage this excommunication redounds, and who is the one who is culpable and cut off from the Church of God. It would appear to be obvious and inevitable that the sacred communion should remain on the side of the Pope and the multitude of bishops, and that the one excommunicated is he who refuses to give them the kiss of peace and who rises up against their Magisterium. But the truth is not always what it seems, and obvious evidence can be deceptive. In these years in which we are living, do we not see an inversion of every value and the collapse of every principle?

     "That the Pope is a driving force in the world Revolution and communist expansion, nothing is more certain. We oppose him, we and the Catholic martyrs. The line where communion is broken is once again a line of fire, an iron curtain and a torrent of blood. On the one side there are the Christians, on the other the apostates. Here we have the Camp of the Saints, over there the immense army of Satan and the traitors.

     "I say that charity is broken. In saying this, I am stating a fact of the spiritual and not of the legal order. For though it is true that the Church is constituted as a human society, she is also the Holy Mystical Body of Christ. Visibly governed by canonical rules, she is invisibly governed by the unique precept of charity. Of the Pope’s and the bishops’ canonical situation I am not the judge. Legally – according to a 'juridicism' which they affect to mock but which they take advantage of and abuse, a juridicism which we however respect – they are our Princes, our Doctors and Pastors. And so they will remain as long as no canonical action, establishing their heresy, schism and scandal, demotes and deposes them, or corrects and changes them.

     "But spiritually, according to the order of Charity, of ‘pastoral theology’ which they set such store by, of filial and fraternal communion, we no longer belong to them or are united with them, because they no longer belong to Christ and are against Him. We are in a permanent state of rebellion against their heretical thoughts, their schismatic desires, and their criminal decisions. We have warned them in secret and in public; we have asked for justice, we have knocked on their doors and on their hearts. They have always rejected us, every one of them. In accordance with the very teaching of Our Lord and in order to remain faithful to His law, we must henceforth consider them as hardened public sinners. And ‘let them be to you as the pagan and the publican’, that is to say as ‘excommunicates’, notes the Jerusalem Bible!

     "We find such ruptures of communion, of varying degrees of severity, during times of crisis in the Church and, although Rome has usually had the advantage, it has sometimes happened that the insurgents were in the right against a hesitant or unfaithful Pope. Take the example of Saint Augustine and the 224 African bishops of the Council of Carthage who in 418 stood up to Pope Zosimus, a pope whoe was deceived rather than deceiving… But these divisions in charity were always brought to an end by the Authority of the Pope or of a Council. Never by hatred and contempt!"

     The prince who governs us "rages against us, his own children". In the meanwhile, once again, he gives a warm welcome to the Patriarch Nikodim, a top Bolshevik spy. "According to the laws of the Church, this Nikodim is a schismatic; according to the reality of his position, he is a Soviet official, an exterminator of the Church in the Ukraine, and a persecutor of Christians. The Pope will soon be shaking the bloody hand of Gromyko the Executioner for the fourth time! I ask: is not Paul VI excommunicated by virtue of the decree of 8 July 1949 which excommunicates those who lend support to communism, a decree that was renewed on 4 April 1959 and again on 13 April 1966? I am not competent to decide on this. But the nausea I experience is sufficient to tell me that, if for him and his party we are the excommunicates, we the last defenders of the poor who are persecuted for the Name of Jesus Christ, then this Pope is outside of our communion and is an object of horror to the Angels and Saints. I say it to his face. And I wait in prayer and indignation for one bishop, just one, to break his communion with this communist Pope, this freemason Pope, this modernist Pope, thereby forcing him at last to open the trial for his own infamy.⁵³"