After his disturbing conversations with the members of the commission of cardinals, Mgr Lefebvre continued to keep his benefactors under a certain illusion. On 16 July 1975, he told them: "In the midst of the trials that the Church undergoes today, our work continues on its path with God’s blessing, and even with a very favourable report by the visitors sent by Rome last November.⁵⁴"

     Three weeks later, on 6 May, the Bishop of Fribourg, Mgr Mamie wrote to Mgr Lefebvre to inform him that he was withdrawing the decree of erection of the Saint Pius X Fraternity, which therefore lost its canonical approbation ad experimentum. Furthermore, on that same 6 May, the three cardinals of the commission informed the traditionalist bishop that "once the Fraternity was suppressed, ‘it would have no legal basis, and its foundations, particularly the seminary at Ecône, would automatically lose their right to exist’"⁵⁵.

     On 15 May, in the Mutualité, the Abbé de Nantes explained to his audience that if Mgr Lefebvre entered into rebellion without openly declaring the dogmatic reasons for his refusal of the conciliar reforms, he would create "a schism that was implicit and latent, but nevertheless very real. It is not legitimate for a bishop to suddenly refuse obedience and to maintain the existence of a seminary against the decision of the local bishop and against the will of the Roman authorities."

     The three cardinals justified their decision against the foundation of Mgr Lefebvre by accusing him of substituting his own authority for that of the Pope. "It cannot be accepted", they wrote in their letter of 6 May, "that each should be invited to subordinate directives from the Pope to his own judgement, deciding whether to submit to them or to disregard them.⁵⁵" The author of the editorial in the Osservatore Romano of 8 May 1975⁵⁶ will make a similar remark: "To whom ultimately will they give their obedience, those who recognise themselves in this document [Mgr Lefebvre’s ‘profession of faith’]? Who will be the interpreter of that Tradition they base themselves on while continuing to suspect a priori the living Magisterium’s interpretation?"

     The Abbé de Nantes will observe that on this particular point the Roman authorities were correct: "When Mgr Lefebvre judges the Rome of today in the name of the Rome of always, he makes himself the sovereign judge of both the Rome of all times and the Rome of today" by claiming to arbitrate in their presumed conflict⁵⁷.

     In his letter to his friends of 22 May, he will deplore the "sinister muddle in which people are lumped together with us or against us, regardless of our position". And he went on to explain: "The idolising of the Pope, real or apparent, in other words sincere or hypocritical, is the cause of all this. One does nothing, one accepts everything or feigns to accept everything, because obedience to the Pope is ranked as the greatest of all virtues. That is to bind Paul VI to his maffia and to push him into following his demons instead of compelling him to distance himself from them, to oppose them, to fight them! These fine tactics, this reverential indolence, this holy submission today paves the way for the seminary at Ecône to be wiped out with the stroke of a pen and, in its wake, all the other traditionalist congregations and religious houses. The reasoning is everywhere the same: your attachment to certain respectable traditions covers a rejection of the Acts of the Council and the wishes of Paul VI! Well yes, of course! There was no need to conceal this powerful artillery under so many neutral, reassuring and deceitful flags! To do so would be like having one’s ship inspected and then scuttled before it even entered the battle!⁵⁸"

     After 6 May 1975, despite the uprooting of his Sacerdotal Fraternity, Mgr Lefebvre continued to develop his foundations, all the while claiming that he was submissive, docile and attached to the Pope. On 31 May he wrote to him: "Prostrate at the feet of Your Holiness, I assure You of my entire filial submission to the decisions that the commission of cardinals communicated to me regarding the Saint Pius X Fraternity and the Seminary"⁵⁹… On 29 June, in a typed letter signed by his own hand, Paul VI asked Mgr Lefebvre for "a public act of submission […]. Such an act necessarily implies, among other things, an acceptance of the measures taken with regard to the Sacerdotal Fraternity of Saint Pius X, along with all their practical consequences.⁶⁰ In short, the Sovereign Pontiff was demanding the dissolution of the Fraternity.

     Mgr Lefebvre did not reply to this letter. Paul VI was astonished at his silence and wrote to him on 8 September: "Each day We await from you some sign to indicate your submission – or better than that, your attachment and your fidelity – to the Vicar of Christ. Nothing as yet has arrived. It appears that you have not given up any of your activities and that you are even devising new projects.⁶⁰" The Pope made it clear that a refusal to obey would be punished. Several days later, in a formal act of rebellion, Mgr Lefebvre reopened the doors of the seminary at Ecône. It was the start of term! Then, on 24 September, he replied to Paul VI: "I hasten to write a few lines to Your Holiness to express my unreserved attachment to the Holy See and to the Vicar of Christ"…⁶⁰

     When this correspondence was made public several months later, the Abbé de Nantes was concerned to note that Mgr Lefebvre had not sent the Pope any reply at the beginning of the summer, after having received his letter of 29 June. Paul VI was urging him to accept the reforms of Vatican II with such questionable arguments that it would have been easy to reply in a decisive manner and thus give a magnificent start to a doctrinal combat of the Counter-Reformation!

POPE PAUL VI DARES TO WRITE: "VATICAN II HAS NO LESS AUTHORITY THAN THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA."

     For his part, in reply to the Pope’s letter, the Abbé de Nantes published an editorial entitled: "Paul VI lies".

     "This is not an insult", he stated right away. "It is a statement of fact. Pope Paul VI lies, without in any way deceiving himself, with the intention of deceiving the world or rather of consolidating the lie upon which the whole Reform of the Church rests, over which he presides with sovereign power. The Pope’s lie is to be found in his letter of 29 June 1975 to Mgr Lefebvre.

     "Paul VI affects to see in Mgr Lefebvre’s opposition nothing but a disturbing revolt. He compares it with the indiscipline of the other side, which he says is also a major concern to him. In this way he appears as the man of the happy mean, outflanked on both wings." Then, "wishing to convince the founder of the Fraternity of St Pius X that he has put himself and his ‘young men’ in an ‘impasse’, Paul VI continues: ‘What meaning has a member who wishes to act alone, independently of the Body to which he belongs?’ This idea, this image, of one man alone against all, carries the Pope yet further. Indeed, too far…

     "‘You allow the case of St Athanasius to be invoked in your favour. It is true that this great bishop remained practically alone in his defence of the true faith and that he was assailed by contradictions on all sides. But, as a matter of fact, the issue here was the defence of the faith as recently defined at the Council of Nicaea. The Council was the norm which inspired his fidelity, as was also the case with St Ambrose.’

     "Every time that an appeal is made to the history of the Church, the Truth pierces the gloom and right reason triumphs. Paul VI has just referred to the example of St Athanasius, but St Athanasius will be his undoing! For this Patriarch of Alexandria, like his great emulator St Hilary of Poitiers, was almost alone in preserving intact his fidelity to the dogma of the Council of Nicaea (325) at the turn of the year 358-359… just when Pope Liberius was abandoning it and the defence of the true faith. It was then that an enormous double Council (a pastoral one!) was held, that of Rimini and Seleucia, which betrayed the faith by unanimously going over to the specious, liberal formulas of a semi-heretical compromise! One has only to invoke St Athanasius and St Hilary, who stood alone against all, as well as St Basil of Cappadocia, a simple lector who broke communion with his bishop, and the imagination leaps ahead of the thought, linking the name of Paul VI with that of Liberius (‘the Defectors’), and the Rimini-Seleucia Council with that of Vatican II. The parallel is striking.

     "But there was one shameful act that Pope Liberius did not commit, that of justifying his abandonment of Athanasius and his own vacillation over dogma by proclaiming the recent Council of Rimini-Seleucia and its poisonous formulas to be equal in authority and superior in importance to the Council of Nicaea and its immortal Credo! That is something which Liberius did not stoop to.

     "But it this shameful act, this indignity, which Paul VI is brazen enough to commit, as he attempts to destroy once and for all any counter-reformist opposition. Caught in the necessity of escaping from the trap in which he has ensnared himself, he exclaims: ‘How could anyone today compare himself to Saint Athanasius whilst daring to combat a Council like the Second Vatican Council, which has no less authority – which is even, under certain aspects, more important still – than that of Nicaea?’

     "There is the lie, clear and undeniable. If it were established and certain that the Acts of Vatican II had the same absolute, incontestable and infallible authority as the dogma of the consubstantiality of the divine Persons, which is the essence of the Creed of Nicaea for which Saint Athanasius fought alone against all – and I leave aside the other proposition whose imprecise language cancels its force, for what can ‘more important… under certain aspects’ mean? – then the question would be settled: whoever opposes the faith of Nicaea ipso facto rejects the Christian faith and is excommunicated; and likewise, we who have rejected the Acts of Vatican II since their promulgation as being stained with heresy, ambiguous and pernicious, would find ourselves ipso facto cut off from the Church… In which case it would be astonishing that the Pope should have waited ten years before notifying us of this fact. But he merely mentions it in passing, in an exclamatory way, in a private letter lacking any doctrinal authority. On the other hand, we, from the very first day, have declared and published the contrary and have even testified to it, without refutation, before the tribunal of the Holy Office in May 1968. No, this Council is not infallible. Its Acts have no dogmatic authority, and their novelty debars them from being imposed on the consciences of the faithful in opposition to the Church’s Tradition! It would benefit the whole Church if, relinquishing his deferential submission, Mgr Lefebvre were to formulate the same refusal and to denounce the Pope’s lie – a lie from which the Church is dying.

     "For the effect of this universal lie is disastrous. No one knows what Vatican II means. It is everything and nothing, a mixture of the traditional and the novel, the certain and the doubtful, the true and the false, the best being used to endorse the worst. To treat all this as equal to the Credo of Nicaea is to decerebrate the Church, to make the faith rot by giving it a confused and unintelligible object, one that defies analysis and resists any definition. That is what they wanted. They did this to bend the world to their arbitrary decisions and to bring it into line with the caprice of their new religion…

     "So, this Pope, who kisses the feet of a schismatic, who offers a chalice to a heretic, who receives the freemason… with no questions asked, this Pope who embraces everyone except genuine Catholics, whom he accuses of heresy, is he not worse than Liberius? Is he not propping up a Council worse than those of Rimini and Seleucia? Most definitely.

     "May God therefore remove this Liar from our midst.⁶¹"

THE BAD BREAK

     To justify his rebellion, Mgr Lefebvre distinguished between two opposing Churches. Let us listen to him presenting to his benefactors, on 3 September, the "agonising dilemma" he said he was confronting: "One has either to accept the reformed and liberal Church, or to maintain one’s allegiance to the Catholic Church […]. This house [Ecône] has resolutely chosen the option of belonging to the Church of all times and refuses to belong to the reformed and liberal Church […]. The greatest service we can render to the Catholic Church, to the Successor of Peter, and to the salvation of souls including our own, is to reject the liberal reformed Church, for we believe in Our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, who is neither liberal nor reformable.⁶²" He concluded his letter by stating in particular that: "It is therefore necessary that we save the true Church…⁶²" This view contradicted word for word the warning that the Abbé de Nantes had frequently addressed to the members of his League: "It is not we who will save the Church. It is the Church who will save herself, when her pastors once again fulfil the duties of their office.⁶³"

     In a postscript, Mgr Lefebvre gave news of his work and of the foundations being realised in different countries, for example in England, where the Fraternity had purchased, he said, "a much larger house for the four priests who dispense true doctrine, the true Sacrifice and the true sacraments". As the Abbé de Nantes will remark, all this was being realised "apparently without any liaison with the hierarchy or the clergy of the local Church"⁶⁴.

     In October 1975, the episcopal conferences of the entire world were informed by Cardinal Villot, Secretary of State, that Mgr Lefebvre’s foundations had lost their right to exist: "It is now therefore clear", stated the Cardinal, "that the Sacerdotal Fraternity of Saint Pius X has ceased to exist, that a fortiori those who take their directions from it can no longer claim to escape the jurisdiction of the diocesan ordinaries, and finally that these same ordinaries are earnestly invited not to incardinate in their dioceses any young men who would declare themselves to be engaged in the service of the Fraternity.⁶⁵"

     Now, at this very moment, Mgr Lefebvre was proclaiming: "No, there is no real conflict with the Pope. Paul VI is not hostile to the Saint Pius X Fraternity. It is the bishops of France, the members of the French coterie in the Vatican, the prelates close to the Pope like Mgr Benelli and Mgr Villot, who wish to destroy the seminary at Ecône." Or again: "My seminary is the clearest expression of an attitude of obedience towards the Pope, Successor of Peter and Vicar of Jesus Christ." And he went on to claim that Paul VI had been misinformed on this matter by Cardinal Villot: "There is a screen placed between the Sovereign Pontiff and me.⁶⁶" An assertion which will be rejected by the Pope himself in an autograph to Cardinal Villot published on 22 February by "Le nouvelliste de Fribourg".

     The conflict hardened and got worse, as Paul VI was implacable – he was, to use his mother’s own words, uno uometto di fero, a little man of iron. In June 1976 he expressly forbade Mgr Lefebvre from performing further ordinations. The latter, unperturbed, renewed his submission to the Pope, his full communion of thought and faith:

     "Your Holiness has known me since 1948 and knows perfectly well the faith I profess, which is that of his 'Credo', and is also aware of my profound submission to the Successor of Peter, which I renew in the hands of Your Holiness.

     "The turmoil and confusion spread throughout the Church over these last few years, which Your Holiness denounced in his speech at the last Consistory, are precisely the reason for the grave reservations we have about a perilous adaptation of the Church to the modern world.

     "But I am privately persuaded of being in full communion of thought and faith with Your Holiness.⁶⁷"

     And the bishop ended his letter with a plea to the Holy Father to "permit a dialogue" with the cardinals, stating that he had no doubt that "the difficulties" would then be ironed out.

     On 25 June, Mgr Benelli, the Secretary of State’s substitute, wrote to Mgr Lefebvre to confirm on behalf of the Pope the measure ordered in his name by mandato speciali : "You are to abstain forthwith from conferring any ordinations." He went on to remind him that in case of transgression, the newly ordained would be ipso facto suspended from the order received (can. 2374) and would be exposed to irregularity (can. 985, 7^o), whilst the ordinant would be suspended from conferring orders for the duration of one year (can. 2373, 1^o and 3^o).

     Notwithstanding this interdict, on 29 June Mgr Lefebvre conferred ordination on fifteen priests at Ecône – ordinations that were certainly valid, but illicit. Mgr Lefebvre then received a monition from the Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops. On 22 July the sanction fell : the founder of the seminary at Ecône was struck with suspens a divinis.

     In this summer of 1976, the rebel bishop clearly benefited from the support of a substantial movement of opinion. Reactionary Catholics, exasperated by the homilies of the progressivist clergy, sickened by the liturgical disorders, and alarmed by the fall in vocations⁶⁸, could not understand the intransigence and hard-heartedness of the Pope towards a bishop who had founded a flourishing traditionalist seminary.

     It was in these circumstances, at a time when Mgr Lefebvre was becoming, in the eyes of many of the faithful, the figurehead of resistance to the auto-demolition of the Church, that the Abbé de Nantes stood out against this movement of opinion, motivated as he was by a horror of schism, the most serious of sins because it runs counter to charity⁶⁹. In July and August he published two editorials entitled "Voilà bien la gâchis!" (What a mess!) and "La mauvaise cassure" (The bad break), in which he retraced the history of the Sacerdotal Fraternity of Saint Pius X and emphasised the deplorable errors of its founder⁷⁰. The theologian of the Catholic Counter-Reformation warned his friends and readers that it was henceforth "not only useless, but in fact reprehensible" to support Mgr Lefebvre’s foundations. Admittedly, he said, Mgr Lefebvre may still "come to consider things more wisely, and each of his priests and individual followers also. But his work is for ever compromised. It has no future except outside the Church and against the Church."

THE UNIQUE AND ETERNAL CHURCH

     To defend and justify his foundation, Mgr Lefebvre went so far – let us recall – as to distinguish two Churches: "The reformed and liberal Church" and "the Church of all times". Consequently the Abbé de Nantes published a very firm Profession of faith in the one and eternal Church:

     "The Church is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. I believe this on the Word of God with an absolute certainty for life, as though I were seeing the invisible through a dark night. To speak and act to the contrary, or even to desire that things should be otherwise, would constitute an offence on our part, a sin against the Church and therefore against Christ-God, for he who wounds the Bride wounds the Bridegroom with the same blow. No excuse of friendship or self-interest can permit this.

     "It is contrary to the Catholic Faith, insulting to the Word of God and taking His Promises as vain, to declare: ‘There are two Churches’. Where do you see two Churches? Here we have the Church of Rome, the historical, hierarchical, visible Church spread throughout the earth, and there...? what? Should anything claim to be or be shown to be the Other Church, it would be a new, private and therefore false Church, as Saint Augustine had already demonstrated to the Donatists.

     For the Donatists of today, the malice of saying that there are two Churches is only a specious, transitory way of assuring the passage from the old universal Church to the new private one, which, we are told, is also the true and faithful Church, one day to be definitively proclaimed as the only Church that remains, the only one that is faithful and holy, since the Church of Rome will no longer count for anything.

     "That is a fine work of schism, which the Modernists have always been very careful not to commit, preferring instead to besiege, invade, dominate and then possess completely for themselves the Unique and Eternal Roman Church, without ever breaking with her or consenting to leave her or live apart from her! He who leaves testifies to the littleness of his faith, and in his solitude he will perish.

     "What I have been tirelessly repeating for twenty years now – with a kind of foresight which is clearly attested by texts that continue to be re-published without change and retaining their original date – is that for almost a century a great apocalyptic combat has been going on : Two religions are fighting within the one Church, disputing for the minds and hearts of clerics in order to climb the hierarchical ladder and attain the supreme power of Council, Conclave and finally Papacy, and so spread unimpeded throughout the entirety of the faithful. On the one side there is the religion of Antichrist with its cult of Man, and on the other there is our Christian religion with its cult of God alone. The ancient and perfect revealed religion is grappling with the new religion invented by men, which bears a blasphemous resemblance to the old. But – and this is the fundamental doctrine of our League of the Catholic Counter-Reformation – we know that this cancer gnawing at the cells and today attacking the vital organs of the great Catholic Body will not prevail. We know that the organism will struggle, and that its uncreated Soul, the Holy Spirit, and its created soul, the divine hierarchy, will breathe such energy and such vitality into it that, no matter how great the damage may be for individuals (alas!), no matter how appalling the great Apostasy of the Princes and Priests of the Church, the modernist-progressivist cancer will finally be reduced, vanquished and excised. The Church will once again live resplendent in purity, sanctified in her Head and fortified in her members, on that so ardently desired day of the Church’s peace.⁷¹"

IN THE DISCIPLINARY CONFLICT AND THE LITURG ICAL DEBATE
THE POPE COMES OUT ON TOP

     The whole drama of Ecône stemmed from the plan conceived by Mgr Lefebvre of instituting a "Church that was unofficial, discreet, humble, silent, a faithful Church that would maintain Tradition through the traditions which are its ordinary vehicle". Such a project corresponded to the wishes of the refractory integrists who, simultaneously with the erection of the seminary at Ecône, created in the early 70’s "religious Associations that were managed in an autonomous way, often by the laity themselves, for the purpose of praying and living in peace, apart from the official Church, in the true faith and according to the true unchangeable worship, thanks to true and proven priests untarnished by any compromise.

     "The process of two parallel, concurrent, irreconcilable Churches was launched under the transparent fiction of submission to the Pope and of love and veneration for his person, said to be the prisoner of his entourage or of his own character. Passion accelerated the process. In order to stress the utility and even the vital necessity of this parallel Church, the distrust  felt by the faithful towards the New Mass was played up; the new rite was declared to be dubious, insulting to God, and sacrilegious; in fact, no occasion was lost to declare it necessarily invalid and therefore idolatrous. The same was said of the new Confirmation rite, declared to be invalid whenever olive oil was not employed as its matter or whenever the new formula imposed by Rome was used, a formula judged insufficient for determining the sacrament. And so, step by step, life appeared to have withdrawn from the official postconciliar Church and to have concentrated itself in this Church of the Catacombs, of the nonjurors, this other Church!

     "As Mgr Lefebvre went from town to town, from Australia to Canada, publicising his work and encouraging the faithful, he would be asked for the Sacraments. It is then that – heedless of the Church’s sacred canons which he was violating, albeit with a calm conscience – he began everywhere to act like a bishop, without anyone's authorisation. Not only did he confirm children, but he re-confirmed them if their parents had doubts about the validity of their original Confirmation! He made no secret of this. It was to satisfy the needs of souls – the supreme law!⁷²"

     Let us listen to Mgr Lefebvre preaching in the Wagram hall in Paris on 4 October 1975:

     "How can one hesitate between a Mass which is a true sacrifice and a Mass which, when all is said and done, is a protestant service, a meal, a communion, a Eucharist, a supper as Luther had called it? How can one hesitate over the Sacraments that one receives? That is what I replied to Cardinal Marty when he reproached me for coming to give the Sacrament of Confirmation to your children. I said to him: 'Parents have the right to know with certainty that their children are really receiving the grace of the Sacrament of Confirmation; they have a right to this.' Now, at the present time, the manner in which the Sacrament of Confirmation is conferred can give rise to genuine doubts about its validity.⁷³"

     Mgr Lefebvre handed over to the faithful the job of deciding, according to their impressions, on the validity of formulas and the correctness of the intentions of celebrants⁷⁴. This was not without its consequences. Such "a general suspicion", will write the Abbé de Nantes, "has been felt by the clergy of the entire world to be an affront and, more seriously, to be an attack on the legitimacy of the organised hierarchical institution of the visible Church and on her daily, universally distributed Sacraments".⁷⁵

     Let us continue our reading of the editorials from the summer of 1976.

     "When Mgr Lefebvre began to ordain numbers of priests and deacons, basing himself on his obedience alone, Rome decided to close Ecône and to eradicate his work. Since everything had apparently been done in sincere submission to the Pope, in obedience and with the necessary authorisations, Paul VI withdrew these authorisations and ordered that everything be instantly dismantled in the name of obedience!

     "The required permission had been granted and had been gratefully received. So, when it was withdrawn, how was it possible not to comply? And what reason could there be for disregarding the interdicts, the sanctions, and general prescriptions of canon law, thereby mounting up the irregularities and becoming irretrievably ensconced in schism?

     "Mgr Lefebvre is now preparing to place the newly ordained priests of 29 June in houses bought in various parts of France and the world." Thus he will open priories and send priests there without any mandate or power from either the local hierarchy or Rome. He claims to confer on them "the necessary powers… He does this, so he says, in submission to the Pope, in fidelity to the Church of all time, but in opposition to ecclesiastical discipline which has been rendered void by the universal apostasy… in partibus infidelium⁷⁶!

     "To justify his passive resistance to orders received and his indifference to the sanctions brought against him and his followers, Mgr Lefebvre invokes the necessity of maintaining a task without equal, that of forming true priests to celebrate the true Mass. The Pope, he says, cannot be opposed to this. So the disciplinary conflict turns into a liturgical debate. And it appears that the Pope is not reluctant to follow Mgr Lefebvre onto this new terrain."

     When the rebel bishop "declares that, through him and his young seminarians, it is the Priesthood of all time and the Mass of all time that are being targeted for extinction, he is sure of being heard by the traditionalist multitude, not only by the elites but by the masses who are sickened by the present day anarchy".

     Now, "the heartrending speeches of Mgr Lefebvre do not incommode the Pope. He foresees that in the eyes of all the Catholics in the world, except for a handful of aberrant spirits, there can only be one single Priesthood, of which the priests of Ecône form but a tiny part, and only one single Mass, be it old or new, Latin or Eastern, and only one single Church, of which our small traditionalist chapels constitute but a negligible fringe."

     When Mgr Lefebvre has fully deployed his liturgical argument to justify his rebellion, "then the whole Church will understand that such a view of ecclesiastical institutions is false and heretical. It will be conceded that there have been defects, excesses and disorders in the Reform of the rites. But everyone will find themselves in agreement that the Church, the Priesthood and the Mass have not been lost and that they continue to exist outside the preserve of those proud souls who consider themselves to be their only depositaries, the last of the faithful, the sole saviours.

     "What an absurdity, what a muddle, what a drama! It could not be worse. To be right about the essential issue and to have a serious advantage in those that are secondary, but then to put oneself in the wrong, to throw oneself into heresy, to separate oneself from the one Church of Jesus Christ!

     "In any disciplinary conflict and liturgical debate, the Pope and the conciliar bishops will always emerge victorious. So true is this that they are already saying that they are ready to welcome Mgr Lefebvre and his followers with open arms when he finally decides to submit to the canonical sanctions incurred and to retract his errors in liturgical matters, before finally embracing the Reform with no reservations! You would be right in thinking that in their position as delinquents, it would be out of place for them to engage in any further controversy and to accuse Paul VI and his Council of heresy and schism! The mere mention of such grave charges would now be met with pitying smiles, even though they are far more serious than the previous accusations and have not as yet been discussed. Such charges would now have the unfortunate appearance of serving as new pretexts, new evasion tactics for continuing the rebellion.

     "In his speeches Mgr Lefebvre is even now adding weight to his criticisms of the Conciliar Church by using dogmatic arguments. At long last he is making known the major and long-lasting reasons for his opposition to the Council and to the errors introduced into it, from whence they spread and were finally imposed by the implacable will of one man alone, Pope Paul VI. The arguments which now come spontaneously to Mgr Lefebvre’s lips are his and they are also ours; they represent our great combat during the years of the Council, 1962-1965; they make up the whole of our Libellus!

     "Rome remains obstinately silent on the matter. With plenty to say about canon law and very sure of herself when it comes to liturgical rites, she nevertheless remains mute when confronted with dogmatic accusations. This is a matter on which she knows she is guilty, absolutely speaking: guilty not before men or the masses or the modern World, but before God. She counts on the Power of this World, the Prince of this World, to stifle those voices which accuse her of infamy.

     "The misfortune is that in such a situation, having arrived at this point of rupture with the whole Church, what would previously have been legitimate for Mgr Lefebvre and still is so for us, namely the quite feasible and unanswerable accusation of heresy directed against the men of the Church, be they theologians, bishops or the Pope, becomes today in his mouth an accusation of heresy, schism and infamy against the Church herself, the present day universal Church of Rome in her very Body! And that is folly!

     "And since such an eventuality is inconceivable, and even to envisage it is already a sin against the faith, such an impossibility has a counter-productive effect on the matter of the accusation, making it unacceptable and ridiculous in the eyes of all. Coming from schismatics, it will not even be examined, and its rejection will only lead the Church to adhere more blindly and resolutely to the heresies and schisms of her Head.

     "It is the Head which one should strike at – as David struck Goliath with the three precious stones of Faith, Hope and Charity – instead of becoming embroiled in discussions on variable rites or disciplinary decrees. He fought his battle and he lost. Deprived of his best weapon, he is now in the Enemy’s hands. Let us hope that Israel’s next hero will make better use of his weapons and be victorious over the arrogant Philistine who challenges the Church of God.⁷⁷"

MGR LEFEBVRE'S WAY OUT:
"PAUL VI IS A LIBERAL."

     On 11 October 1976, one month after he had received him in an audience, Paul VI wrote a long heartfelt letter to Mgr Lefebvre. With remarkable dignity, the Pope addressed a pressing admonition to the dissident bishop. He imputed to the unhappy prelate "an ecclesiology that was false on certain essential points" and he reproached him for "acts of deliberate rebellion against the true Church of God".

     "What is actually at stake here", he said to the bishop, "is the question, which must be regarded as fundamental, of your clearly proclaimed refusal to recognise, in its totality, the authority of the Second Vatican Council and that of the Pope, a refusal which is accompanied by a deliberate effort to organise and propagate what must, alas, be called a rebellion. That is the essential point, and it is absolutely intolerable […]. A solitary bishop without a canonical mission does not have, in actu expedito ad agendum, the faculty of making general decisions about the rule of faith and of determining the nature of Tradition.⁷⁸"

     Thus Paul VI passed from the question of discipline to the domain of dogma, and the proceedings he was instituting against Mgr Lefebvre started to focus on the latter's rejection of the new conciliar religion.

     The Abbé de Nantes will inform his audience at the Mutualité that this letter contained "an unsettling theological demonstration and assertions of an exceptional gravity"⁷⁹. Here is what Paul VI stated:

     "Not one of the things decreed by the Second Vatican Council or in the reforms decided on by Us to put them into effect, is opposed to anything fundamental or unchangeable in the bimillenary Tradition of the Church. We vouch for this not by virtue of any personal qualities of Ours, but by virtue of the office that Our Lord has conferred on Us as the legitimate successor of Peter and of the special assistance that He has promised to Us as He did to Peter: ‘I have prayed for you that your faith fail not’ (Lk 22.32). In company with Us the universal episcopate also vouches for this.

     "You may no longer invoke the distinction between the dogmatic and the pastoral to justify your accepting certain texts of this Council and rejecting others. Admittedly, everything stated by the Council does not call for an assent of the same kind : only what is affirmed through ‘definitive’ acts as an object of faith or linked to the faith, requires the assent of faith. But the rest also forms part of the solemn magisterium of the Church, and it should be confidently accepted and put into sincere practice by every one of the faithful.

     "Nevertheless, in conscience, you say, you do not always see how certain texts of the Council or certain arrangements we have made to apply them can be reconciled with the sound tradition of the Church and in particular with the Council of Trent or the statements made by Our predecessors, for example, concerning the responsibility of the college of bishops united to the Sovereign Pontiff, the new ‘Ordo Missae’, ecumenism, religious liberty, the attitude to dialogue, evangelisation in the modern world… This is not the place, in a letter such as this, to take up each of these problems. The precise significance of the documents, along with the totality of their nuances and the context in which they are set, as well as authoritative explanations and thoroughly researched and objective commentaries, should enable you to overcome these personal perplexities. Counsellors who are absolutely reliable, both theologians and spiritual advisers, could help you further, in the light of God, and We are ready to make this fraternal assistance available to you. But how could such a private personal difficulty – a spiritual drama which We respect – allow you to publicly set yourself up as the judge of what has been legitimately and practically adopted on a unanimous basis, and to knowingly lead a group of the faithful astray  in your rejection? […]

     "Ultimately you intend, you and those who follow you, to halt at a particular moment in the Church’s life. You refuse, by this very fact, to adhere to the living Church which is the Church of all times. You break with her legitimate pastors and you despise the legitimate exercise of their office.⁸⁰"

     Having read this letter, Mgr Lefebvre stated that he would not be replying to it⁸¹. The Abbé de Nantes regretted this: "Not to reply is to admit that one is in the wrong.⁸²"

     However, Mgr Lefebvre was obliged to give the priests of his Fraternity and the seminarians of Ecône some explanations about his attitude. It was incumbent on him to justify his formal disobedience to Paul VI.

     How then would he exculpate himself? Was he officially going to sink into sedevacantism? For by claiming that Paul VI and the bishops had fallen from office, he would have adopted a very clear-cut position, in perfect accord with his practical conduct towards the whole of the Catholic hierarchy⁸³.

     Well, let us take the opportunity to read the judgements and recommendations he communicated in writing to his seminarians at Ecône, on 24 February 1977, in answer to the following question: "What should our attitude be towards Pope Paul VI?"

     "This attitude will vary according to the manner in which one defines Pope Paul VI, for our attitude towards the Pope, as Pope and successor of Peter, cannot change.

     "Ultimately then the question is : is it true that Pope Paul VI has ever been or is still the successor of Peter? If the response is negative (Pope Paul VI has never been or is no longer the pope), our position will be that of the 'sede vacante' periods, and this would simplify the problem. Certain theologians make this claim, basing themselves on the statements of  theologians of times past, statements which have been accepted by the Church. They studied the problem of a Pope who was heretical or schismatic or who practically abandoned his office as supreme Pastor.

     "It is not impossible that this hypothesis will one day be confirmed by the Church. For it has many serious arguments in its favour. Numerous indeed are the acts of Paul VI which, if carried out by a bishop or theologian twenty years ago, would have been condemned as suspect of heresy, favouring heresy. Faced with the fact that it is the very one sitting on the throne of Peter who accomplishes these acts, the Catholic world, what there is still left of it, feels stupefied and prevented from acting. It prefers to keep quiet rather than to condemn, and it prefers to watch the destruction of the Church rather than to oppose it, contenting itself with waiting for better days.

     "However, the question remains: to what extent is the Pope truly responsible for these acts favouring heresy? Some reply that he is not responsible at all, that he is drugged, imprisoned, etc. Such a reply appears inadmissible. The Pope seems to be in full possession of his faculties and very conscious of his firm desire to promote the Council and the reforms that stem from it.

     "In addition to the two hypotheses of a heretical Pope who is therefore no longer the Pope and of a Pope no longer in control, incapable of fulfilling his role because of the tyranny exercised by his entourage, is there not another response which, although  more complex, is perhaps more realistic : that of Paul VI, a liberal, and that to a profound degree. His liberalism has its roots in Luther, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Lammenais, and some of the influential figures he was acquainted with : Marc Sangnier, Fogazzaro, the 'bad Maritain', Teilhard de Chardin, La Pira, etc.

     "Steeped in liberalism – which is intellectual incoherence, practical incoherence, as Cardinal Billot defines it – he personifies a Catholic or Catholicising theory and a practice based on the false principles of liberalism and of the modern world, principles with which the Church's enemies are imbued : Protestants, masons, Marxists; principles derived from that Hegelian, subjectivist, idealist and evolutionist philosophy which lies at the base of of democracy and false individual liberty, all of which is propped up by the mirage of progress, change, the dignity of the human person, etc.

     "This fundamental incoherence gives the liberal two faces, a double personality, a constant duality which provokes auto-destruction.

     "One might say that there is no worse evil than that of having a convinced liberal on the Throne of Peter. That is why the Church's enemies rejoice. They manifest their joy quite openly. That is also why any reaction from the Catholic faithful is inhibited, due to the apparently traditional face of the Pope.

     "He is a second Lamennais, tortured, disturbed, capable of both great sentimentalism and cruel reactions.

     "It seems to me that this response corresponds better with the history of liberalism and with that of Paul VI himself. It offers a better explanation of all that he has done and continues to do. It helps us to understand the Vatican Council and the postconciliar period. It casts a sombe light on the Vatican and its agents who act in the same ways as the true liberals of the last two centuries.

     "Our conclusion in this matter is as follows : we are with Paul VI as the successor of Peter, fulfilling his role; but we refuse to follow Paul VI as the successor of Luther, Rousseau and Lammenais, etc.

     " It is the official and perpetual Magisterium of the Church which allows us to discern when Paul VI is acting in one manner or the other.

     "We regard as vain all the efforts, all the acts, and all the trouble taken to oblige us to follow Paul VI the liberal and the destroyer of our faith. On the other hand, we accept all those acts which tend to sustain our Catholic faith, for in the Church, in accordance with her Founder's will and the Church's very own nature, everything is ordained to the faith, the pledge of eternal life. All her powers, all her laws are ordained to this end.  To use these powers and these laws for the ruin of the faith and of the Church's institutions is an evident abuse of power and an act of open disobedience against Our Lord. To collaborate in this ruin by submitting to an immoral command is to contribute to the disobedience to Our Lord.

     "If it appeared impossible, as the progressivists and those who follow Paul VI with their eyes closed claim, that Pope Paul VI could be the true Pope and yet at the same time favour heresy, and if, consequently, itappeared contrary to the promises of Our Lord Jesus Christ that a Pope could be profoundly liberal, then one would have to subscribe to the first hypothesis. But this does not seem to be at all evident. It was Cardinal Danielou who said in his last work to appear on this subject that Pope Paul VI is a liberal.

     "At any rate, we must pray for the Pope that he may faithfully preserve the deposit of faith confided to his care.⁸⁴"

     Thus it was that Mgr Lefebvre haughtily disdained all the studies, demonstrations and conclusions that the Abbé de Nantes had published, initially in his Letters to my friends and then in the Catholic Counter-Reformation, on the subject of a heretical Pope and on the personality of Paul VI. The unhappy bishop considered every stance possible in the current circumstances, except the one proposed and practised by the Abbé de Nantes since 1965⁸⁵, namely an appeal to the extraordinary magisterium of the Pope – that is to say, to his solemn ex cathedra magisterium, infallibly assisted by the Holy Spirit – in order that the Sovereign Pontiff settle outstanding questions on faith and morals by dogmatic or moral sentences backed up with anathemas⁸⁶.

     With his thesis of "Paul VI the liberal"⁸⁷, Mgr Lefebvre had found a way out, allowing him to emancipate himself from the sovereign authority of the Pope without professing sedevacantism. His resolution to obey or disobey the Pope as he saw fit, his decision to make his own judgement, without any appeal, about which of Paul VI’s teachings were in harmony with "the Church’s official and perpetual magisterium" and which were contrary to it, would allow him to maintain his foundations and continue his activities "without any further examination of his faith and his works, and without the direction of any authority"⁸⁸.

     When one reads Mgr Lefebvre’s reply, it appears that he was adopting a clearly schismatic position by constituting himself the sovereign and supreme authority, when all the time there was a wise and supernatural solution to the crisis occasioned by the uncertain and questionable nature of Paul VI’s faith. The Abbé de Nantes had in fact reminded his readers of this several months beforehand, during the summer of 1976, when he had refuted the worthless arguments advanced by the sedevacantists. In an article entitled "The legitimacy of Paul VI", he referred to the pertinent remarks of the Abbé des Graviers concerning the bull of Paul IV, Cum ex apostolatus, dated 1559. He continued: "The Abbé des Graviers very opportunely recalls that, since the constitution Providentissima of Benedict XV and the promulgation of the Code of Canon Law in 1917, a person may only be regarded as heretical if, after having professed some error contrary to the Catholic faith, he has been the object of a canonical monition and has refused to retract and abjure his error in the stated period. Such is the ‘formal heretic’, the one who is ‘obstinate’.

     "It follows that, whatever Cardinal Montini may have said or done – and the author shows too cautious a reserve regarding this chapter of his life – no one can accuse him of heresy in the canonical sense of the word.

     "The Abbé des Graviers’ demonstration corresponds to what we have continually stated and written over the last twelve years against the two opposing ‘papist’ parties, one of which is unconditionally submissive to the Paul VI and the other of which no longer wants to recognise him as Pope.

     "However, his argument contains a certain deficiency, and I must draw attention to it, as it would seem to be detrimental to the Church. The fact is that I never claimed to bring a canonical monition against Paul VI when I took to Rome our Liber accusationis summarising the heresies, schisms and effective scandals of his pontificate. Nor did I claim to set myself up as his judge, as some have fallaciously stated. However, I did accuse him. By doing this, I wished to provoke a canonical process – even if it were one in which I would be accused of unjustly accusing Paul VI – in order that the light of an infallible dogmatic judgement might be cast on such grave debates. I thought and continue to think that this was necessary, and that it is still necessary, in order that the Church of Rome and the Roman clergy, who more than any other are invested with the right and duty of remonstrance, should be shaken out of their laziness, their cowardice and an inertia which borders on complicity.

     "Notice that I say: remonstrance. Should one not go further and say: canonical monition? Is there really no authority that can and should bring a monition against the Pope, obliging him by force of law, not of course to condemn himself and to retract, but at least to sovereignly judge himself? Let us put this question to the Abbé des Graviers. A Pope, he notes, can condemn the errors of one of his predecessors. But he can do much more; he can condemn this predecessor himself, in person. For example, Leo II confirmed the anathema of the Sixth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 681 against Pope Honorius... Would this anathema have been justified, if the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Saint Sophronius, had not in his own lifetime remonstrated with Honorius and warned him that he had to remain faithful to Tradition and to condemm heresy? Was it not Honorius' refusal to listen to Saint Sophronius that constituted the crime of heresy which, forty years later, was to justify the anathema brought against him? (see the Letter to my Friends, no 188, 12 November 1964)

     "Such at least is my opinion, and it is this conviction that governs all our actions against Paul VI, a Pope who abuses his office. For we cannot accept that there is nothing one can do against an effectively heretical Pope except to fold one's arms and to pray for him, whilst simply waiting for him to die and letting the whole Church flounder in mortal error with him... If that were so, then in condemning his error some while after his death, the Church would logically be condemning herself for not having noticed and rejected the error at the time! Admonishment, remonstrance, and the canonical monition, these alone, brought against the Pope by the appropriate authority, can save the dogma of the perpetual infallibility of the Roman Catholic Church.

     "In conclusion, we should hold it as certain that Paul VI is the legitimate Pope, even if he utters and commits many faults of heresy and schism. But it seems to me no less certain that the Church has the duty to resist him to his face, to remonstrate with him and to urge the College of Cardinals to bring a monition against him. By this, I refer to a formal obligation to judge himself sovereignly, whether this leads to him justifying himself or to him condemning himself, and then either resigning from office or making amends by confessing his error. Therefore, our accusation against Paul VI stands firm, ever more insistently demanding a Judgement from him.⁸⁹"

     Right up to the end of Paul VI's papacy, Mgr Lefebvre will remain deaf to the Abbé de Nantes' appeals. Then, ten years after the death of Paul VI, he will have the effrontery to write:

     "It is evident that one day the Church will have to judge the Council and these Popes [John XXIII and Paul VI]. This is unavoidable. How will Pope Paul VI in particular be judged?

     "Some maintain that he was a heretic, a schismatic, and an apostate. Others believe it is possible to prove that Paul VI could not have had the good of the Church in mind, and that, consequently, he was not pope; that is the Sedes vacans thesis. I do not say that these opinions are devoid of arguments in their favour. Perhaps, you will tell me, in thirty years time we will discover things that were hidden, or we will more clearly see elements that should have been blindingly obvious to our contemporaries, statements by the Pope that were absolutely contrary to the Church’s tradition, etc. Perhaps. But I do not believe there is any need to have recourse to these explanations. I even think that it is an error to follow such hypotheses.

     "Other people think, in a simplistic fashion, that there were two Popes at that time: one, the real one, being imprisoned in the Vatican dungeons, whilst the other, the look-alike, sat on Saint Peter’s throne, to the downfall of the Church. Books have appeared about the ‘two popes’, based on the revelations of a person possessed by the devil and on so-called scientific arguments which assure us, for example, that the voice of the double is not that of the true Paul VI!

     "Lastly, there are others who think that Paul VI was not responsible for his deeds, imprisoned as he was by his entourage, even drugged by them, as suggested by several pictures showing a physically exhausted Pope who has to be propped up, etc. Such a solution is rather too simplistic in my opinion, for in such a case we would only have had to wait for the next Pope. But we have had (and I do not speak of John Paul I who only reigned for one month) another Pope, John Paul II, who has invariably pursued the path traced out by Paul VI.⁹⁰"

     Thus, in 1987, Mgr Lefebvre referred to the accusation brought by the Abbé de Nantes against Paul VI, presenting it as a simple "hypothesis" and placing it alongside other opinions which are clearly preposterous, ridiculous and unfounded, such as that of a drugged Pope or of a double of Paul VI sitting on the throne of Peter. The Abbé de Nantes did not hesitate, therefore, to denounce the disloyalty, the hypocrisy and even the treason of the founder of the seminary at Ecône, designating him by name as "the treacherous bishop". Indeed, Mgr Lefebvre, as the reader will have noticed, had had the impudence to state: "Perhaps, you will tell me, in thirty years time we will discover things that were hidden"… About which our Father commented: "‘Perhaps’, continues the treacherous bishop, as he seeks to emphasise the point that up till now no one has put any argument forward or has even considered any argument which could support and justify our accusations.⁹¹"

     These "hidden" things, to use Mgr Lefebvre’s own words, were they not "blindingly obvious" to the theologian of the Catholic Counter-Reformation since the beginning of Paul VI’s pontificate in 1964-1965? And these "statements absolutely contrary to tradition", did they not constitute the whole matter of the Liber accusationis?

     The assertion "that Paul VI was a heretic, a schismatic, an apostate", proved by fifteen years of consistent and continuous controversy, was finally rejected by Mgr Lefebvre without his even having criticised it. It was rejected in favour of an explanation of Paul VI’s actions which the Abbé de Nantes will call "absolutionist". "The real solution", wrote the bishop, "seems to me quite different, much more complex, painful and distressing. It is provided by one of Paul VI’s friends, Cardinal Danielou. In his Memoirs, published by a member of his family, the Cardinal explicitly states: ‘It is plain that Paul VI is a liberal’." Then Mgr Lefebvre went on to speak of the "psychological weakness" of the Pope Paul VI, of his "two faces", etc.

     The Abbé de Nantes will reveal all the malice of such a speech: So we are presented with Popes who are not to be blamed but to be "excused". Let no one take them for "heretics, schismatics, or causes of scandal", and even less for "perfidious apostates"! No, it was not they who wanted the "autodemolition" of the Church and her "self-abasement before the world"! They should rather be considered as divided and unstable personalities, or… liberals! capable of great good as well as great evil, depending on the influences and pressures brought to bear on them. They are complex beings, elusive and very probably sincere, whom we have no right to judge… except in order to excuse them.⁹²"

     So what ultimately was Mgr Lefebvre’s position regarding the Popes? Did he claim to develop his work with the Pope, or despite the Pope, or against the Pope? "The answer has at last been given", remarked the Abbé de Nantes. "It is delightfully vague and rather too good. No, not against the Pope. In two murderous lines, excommunication is fulminated against us: It is an error to claim with inadequate arguments that anything can be discovered in the teaching of Paul VI and therefore of John Paul II which is ‘absolutely contrary to the Church’s tradition’. Mgr Lefebvre, therefore, is not against the Pope…

     "With the Pope? That would doubtless be an overstatement, and is impossible to prove. Despite the Pope? Perhaps. But the word is probably too strong. In this complex reality one has to distinguish between the official and the public on one hand and the unofficial and the secret on the other. One has to distinguish between the Pope as the infallible vicar of Jesus Christ and the Pope as a liberal who is not exempt from errors and weakness, nor indeed from successive displays of sincerity and determination… Let us say that Mgr Lefebvre – with his generations of young priests and his traditionalist Catholic faithful – are claiming to reconstruct the Church without the Pope, without his explicit consent, but in accordance with his deepest desire, which cannot be otherwise, since such is Our good pleasure, says God.⁹³"

SEDEVACANTIST SEMINARIANS AT ECÔNE

     Let us go back ten years earlier, to 1977. It was true that Mgr Lefebvre, with his thesis of of "Paul VI the liberal", had found a way to avoid officially declaring himself a sedevacantist. But several of his seminarians at Ecône had already been won over to the theories of the Abbé Barbara and Father Guérard des Lauriers concerning the invalidity of the so-called Mass of Paul VI and the vacancy of the papal See.

     However, the superior of the seminary, Canon Berthod, rejected the theories of the Abbé Barbara on the invalidity of the new rite, and he regretted the growing influence, in the heart of the Fraternity, of sedevacantist priests and seminarians whom Mgr Lefebvre tolerated and even protected! Unable to get them to change their views or to dismiss them from the seminary, Canon Berthod resigned from his position in 1977. Such indeed was one of the reasons for his departing from Ecône, along with a certain number of professors and seminarians, in August of that year.

     A person close to Mgr Lefebvre, who had lived in his seminary for several years, will write to the Abbé de Nantes on 15 August 1977: "I do not know whether you have been kept up to date on the situation at Ecône, but the events of this last month have been decisive and the predicted split is practically consummated. I am one of those – and how numerous they are! – who are making their arrangements to abandon the direction he is taking, since it is no longer that of the Roman Church. We know only too well that, since the beginning of the foundation, you clearly foresaw its outcome. Is it not distressing to see Monseigneur so cleverly manoeuvred by Fathers Guérard, Barbara, and Coache, not to forget Dom Augustin? The whole of this group hang about – I was going to write grovel [grenouillant] – in the bishop’s shadow, all flattering him. They spend their time cleverly directing several priests, doubtless of good faith, but of little common sense or even intelligence. Having obtained the Monseigneur’s trust, they have become the main directors of the seminary, imposing on it their false liberalism and their anti-Roman conceptions of the Church.⁹⁴"

MGR LEFEBVRE ARROGATES TO HIMSELF A UNIVERSAL
JURISDICTION WHICH HE DOES NOT AND CANNOT HAVE

     In the formula of union of the League of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, dated 28 September 1974, the Abbé de Nantes had written: "Schism declares itself through the rebellious rejection of the doctrinal, pastoral and judicial authority of the apostolic and Roman hierarchy."

     By planting his priories in various countries, Mgr Lefebvre was effecting a "practical rupture of communion with the whole Church constituted as a hierarchical body"⁹⁵. He was establishing himself as a supreme and universal authority, one that was direct and immediate, distributing powers, jurisdictions and sacraments for the whole world… rather like a pope. In matters of sacramental and canonical jurisdiction he was substituting his own authority – not openly, but surreptitiously – for the unique hierarchical authority of the reigning Pope. His argument was that, according to canon law, the priests ordained by him possessed powers of jurisdiction throughout the world, owing to exceptional circumstances.

     Let us listen to the reasons he developed at his press conference of 15 September 1976:

     "Question: Monseigneur, the young priests coming out of your seminary at the present time are not able to confer the sacraments in a valid manner. For example, if a priest were to officiate at the sacrament of marriage, would this sacrament be valid?

     "Mgr Lefebvre: In this matter of the jurisdiction of priests, we base ourselves on the extraordinary cases mentioned by canon law. Canon law has provided for extraordinary circumstances for all the sacraments, for the jurisdiction of confession, for marriages. And since, in my opinion, – and clearly this a judgement which is of course somewhat personal, if you like – we find ourselves in extraordinary circumstances, circumstances which are rarely seen in the Church, well then, I think that these young priests are in the position of being able to make use of those faculties allowed for by canon law in extraordinary circumstances. Take confession for example: if there is a road accident, even if you have no jurisdiction in the diocese, you can approach the dying and give him the sacraments. When a ship is sinking, you can also give the sacraments. You have jurisdiction; the law gives you jurisdiction at that moment. Say a fire breaks out or war is declared, you have no time to ask the bishop for jurisdiction; you already have jurisdiction. They are extraordinary circumstances. I think that we are in extraordinary circumstances, not physical but moral, such that our young priests have the right to make use of these extraordinary faculties.⁹⁶"

     How pitiful! "Such a demonstration is, alas, quite worthless", the Abbé de Nantes will write." And the theologian of the Catholic Counter-Reformation will prove this easily. Let us read what he says: "The Code of Canon Law recognises objective extraordinary circumstances, that is to say, circumstances which are specified by law, incontestable, and necessarily recognised by episcopal and Roman authority. The Code provides for these circumstances precisely in order to prohibit any subjective interpretation and to put a stop to private judgements all too eager to find ways of avoiding ordinary episcopal jurisdiction.

     "Thus, it is recognised that any priest, even an irregular one, has the right to confer the sacraments of salvation on a person who is in positive and proximate danger of death. But in order for a priest to organise a regular Catholic ministry outside the knowledge and power of the local Ordinary, three conditions are necessary: 1) that he himself be a bishop, 2) that the local hierarchy has been destroyed, annihilated or impeded, and 3) that the moral consent of the Sovereign Pontiff is positively certain (cf. Dom Gréa, L’Église et sa divine constitution, p. 235-238).

     "Mgr Lefebvre personally fulfils the first of these conditions. Not the others. To say that the second is realised, is to judge without appeal – and I employ the term in its strict juridical acceptation – that nowadays there is no longer any episcopal Body on earth, or at the very least that there is no longer any bishop in this country… As for the third condition, to maintain this, one would have to make out that the Pope is drugged, that he has a double, that he is confined to his room, or else roundly state that there is no longer a true Pope…

     "Consequently... Either there still exists on earth a visible and hierarchical Church, one that is Catholic, apostolic and Roman, whose divine order is established and maintained according to the rules of canon law in force. In this case, Mgr Lefebvre’s attempted justification has no value; confessions and marriages conferred without the ordinary powers of jurisdiction and, in the case of marriage, without the parish priest’s personal delegation, are indisputably null and void in law.

     "Or else, there is no longer a Pope in Rome; there are no more bishops in our dioceses or elsewhere, other than Mgr Lefebvre alone. But in that case, why bother to call on canon law, using a shaky argument? If today he is the sole Successor of the Apostles, then it his authority alone that subsists as the fount of law in the eyes of men and of God. Let him concede powers throughout the world to whom he will, where he wills and as he wills! But that is not what lies behind his thinking, as can be seen by the timid and hesitant justification we have just read. But it must be the thinking of a number of priests and faithful who follow him and urge him on.

     "It is extremely grave : for souls who receive absolutions that are invalid and who become accustomed to this protestant subjectivism; for families that accept marriages which no ecclesiastical court, knowing of the facts, would hesitate to declare null and void; for the undivided subsistence of Holy Church, broken by this reasoning and this behaviour, which can only be called schismatic, because that is what it is and, sad to say, is so even more formally than the latent schism of those who camp within the Church, taking advantage of the complicity and inertia of those who occupy the highest positions, the better to destroy her.⁹⁷"

     The Abbé de Nantes went on to recall the doctrinal combat that he had waged since his dramatic encounter with the integrist priests who had visited him at Maison Saint-Joseph on 21 July 1969. Had he not in fact denounced and refuted on several occasions in the Catholic Counter-Reformation the errors and schismatic theories of these priests who lacked knowledge and prudence?

     As he recalled some of his vigorous warnings against the integrist schism, he pointed out that, from 1970 onwards, one of his constant concerns had been to defend the unity of the Church. To maintain traditionalists in the visible, historical and hierarchical communion of the Church, he had sought to divert them from the path of perdition on which, alas, Mgr Lefebvre had gradually ventured, to his very great misfortune.

     "The truth", he concluded, "is that they do not want to take account of our warnings about the schism they have silently been preparing in France these last seven years. We have stated this over and over again : Neither schism nor heresy. We will remain Catholics, and we will oppose with all our might those who lead traditionalists into an impasse.⁹⁸"

APPENDIX I

THE HERESY OF THE INTEGRISTS
REGARDING THE CHURCH AND HER SACRAMENTS

     In 1976, while Mgr Lefebvre was entering upon the path of schismatic dissidence, the Abbé de Nantes was alarmed to see so many integrists carried away by the fever to declare the sacraments conferred according to the new postconciliar rites invalid.

     "That one should find these innovations regrettable", he explained, "is permissible, since no infallibility governs the details of liturgical rites. That one should denounce their modernist inspiration, their deliberate ambiguity and the danger of protestant or naturalist contamination, is something more serious, which presupposes serious study on our part and great prudence, for any hasty judgement might wound the teaching Church. But to declare invalid a sacrament conferred in the Catholic Church by the whole of the clergy, in complete confidence, in accordance with the new rite decreed, promulgated and imposed by Roman Authority, that is something which exceeds all measure and remains inexcusable, unjustifiable, criminal. Even had we reasons which appeared absolutely solid, we should prefer to believe the Church with blind confidence rather than trust in our personal judgement.⁹⁹"

The validity of the new rite of confirmation

     Since 1975 Mgr Lefebvre had started to confer the Sacrament of Confirmation wherever he was asked for it, and he even re-confirmed children if their parents suspected that they had not been validly confirmed the first time.

     "This was taking ignorance too far", the Abbé de Nantes would remark. A superficial study is sufficient to convince one that the new rite is perfectly valid, even if the new words may appear to some as less expressive than the previous ones. And I say the previous ones, because although we have known no others, they are in fact of a much more recent origin than the others which have resurfaced from an antiquity of more than a thousand years¹⁰⁰! It was by such blunders that traditionalism became corrupted into a stubborn integrism and threw itself into an adventure which led nowhere. They renewed with regard to Confirmation, just as they would shortly with the Sacrament of Orders, the same supposed demonstrations of the invalidity of the new rites, all in a frenzied act of free judgement. What a mess!

     "It was heresy. Once such conduct claims to justify itself by the uncertainty felt by the faithful about the validity of the new rites, or about the intention and powers of the priests who distribute them, or about the legitimacy of the Pope and bishops who guarantee their exercise, it is the ruin of the Church’s sacraments. The others [the modernists] corrupt and subvert the faith, it is true. But that is not a reason for completing the ruin by wounding the divine Constitution of the Church and by overturning the fundamental order of the sacraments! For there is nothing more subversive than this acceptance of a general, confused and ill-founded doubt felt by the faithful, often badly informed, regarding the validity of the sacraments and the legitimacy of the Pope and the bishops in communion with him, who are the Church.¹⁰¹"

Where the true Church is, there also are the true sacraments

     In the summer of 1976, during a controversy with the parish priest of Touzac, "whose ignorance was only equalled by his arrogance", the Abbé de Nantes denounced the heresy of the integrist schismatics regarding the Church and her sacraments. Here are some extracts from the final reply he sent the parish priest of Touzac.

     "This is a question of the Church, the Bride of Christ, the unique Ark of Salvation for souls and for nations. It is also a question of the saving, vivifying and sanctifying Sacraments bestowed by her industrious hands. Where the Head is, there also is the Body and there also are the hands endowed with miraculous virtue. In the year 411 St Augustine demonstrated this point to the Donatists: the unworthiness of the minister in no way detracts from the validity of the sacrament he administers, because Christ Himself effectively works everywhere in His Church through the ministry of men, no matter how unworthy they may be. Whether the pipe be made of gold or of lead, both are equally effective for conducting water from the source to the house. The power given to the Church is so great that the essential sacraments, correctly administered even in schism or in heresy and by false brethren, are still fully valid, according to the constant and infallible teaching of the Church. If the virtue of the sacrament is impaired, it is through the bad disposition of the receiver to make use of its effects.

     "That is why the Church neither re-baptises nor re-ordains, as the Donatists did, and she never re-confirms. It may happen that she administers the sacraments conditionally, if no one can guarantee that the essential rite was correctly carried out by the dissident minister. For the Church alone is the sovereign and infallible judge of the form and matter of the sacraments.

     "Therefore, the following is an absolute maxim: ‘Where the Church is, there the true sacraments are given’. Likewise its corollary: ‘Where false sacraments are given, there the Church is not’. What appears to be the reciprocal maxim: Where the true sacraments are given, there is found the Church , is not however entirely true. That is because some sacraments subsist in schism and in heresy, and though it may happen that the true sacraments are being administered in a certain place, it cannot be guaranteed that there is to be found the One Holy Church, outside of which there is no salvation.

     "Thus, the Church remains in total command of the indispensable, certain and efficacious means of our sanctification and of our eternal salvation. It was in order to prevent any return to the Donatist heresy or any pretext for schism and double administration of the Sacraments that the Council of Trent gave force of law to the inviolable custom of the apostolic Church whereby each bishop is the master of the sacraments within his own diocese, the sole Father of souls and Pastor of the Flock, in communion with the Sovereign Pontiff. Any other bishop who enters his fold to confer the sacraments without his consent is an intruder:

     " ‘Sess. VI, cp. 5: Bishops must not perform any episcopal function outside their own dioceses. – No bishop is permitted, under any pretext or privilege whatsoever, to exercise episcopal functions in the diocese of another bishop, without the permission of the local Ordinary; and with regard only to persons subordinate to the same Ordinary. If any bishop does otherwise, he will be suspended in law from his episcopal functions; similarly those whom he ordains are also suspended from the exercise of the Orders they have received." (Decree of Reformation, 1547).

     Let not the hypothesis of a diocesan bishop fallen into heresy, schism or apostasy be raised here, for Rome is the sole arbitrator and judge of that. Nor let the question of a defective administration of the sacraments, due to some new form declared to be invalid, be raised either, because here too, Rome alone is competent in such matters and is guaranteed against leading the whole world entrusted to her care into the use of ill-formed sacraments. The reference to the Catechism of the Council of Trent¹⁰², given by the author of the letter [namely the parish priest of Touzac, in his letter dated 30 August to the Abbé de Nantes], is inadequate, and that of Canon 780 an imposture! This canon reads: ".... per verba in pontificalibus libris ab Ecclesia probatis praescripta, with the formula prescribed in a pontifical which has been approved by the Church."

     "Read the Profession of Faith of the same Council of Trent, which is obligatorily placed at the front of every edition of the Code of Canon Law and which every priest and bishop has to swear to on taking office: "I accept and I most firmly embrace the apostolic traditions and those of the Church, likewise all the observances and constitutions of this same Church […]. I profess that there are seven sacraments. I receive and I accept the rites received and approved by the Catholic Church in the solemn administration of the said sacraments, among which Baptism, Confirmation and Orders cannot be repeated without sacrilege." (1564.)

     "During the 21^st session of this same Council in 1562, it was specified: ‘In the dispensation of the sacraments the Church has always had the power, whilst preserving the substance of the sacraments, to decide or modify what she judges most appropriate to the spiritual utility of those receiving them or to the respect due to the sacraments themselves, according to the variety of time, circumstance and place’, and ‘our holy mother Church... knows her power in the administration of the sacraments."

     "After that, to say that the Church can overreach her power and affect by her reforms the very substance of the sacraments instituted by her Founder, amounts to abjuring the Catholic Faith, rejecting the Council of Trent in particular, as the Protestants do, and contesting the infallibility of the Roman Church, mother and mistress of all the Churches.

     "It is time to come back to the essential. The Catholic Church is still the Church of Rome, is it not! Is not the Pope called Paul VI? And the bishops of the whole world, the Bishop of Angouleme for example [Touzac belonged to the diocese of Angouleme], are they not for certain in communion with him? In that case, to despise the Confirmation they administer, according to the form prescribed by the Holy See, sole and sovereign legislator in this matter, is to despise the Holy Spirit Himself, in Person, Who is given thereby. Similarly, to declare the New Mass invalid and to assert that nothing other than bread and wine are being offered for the sacrilegious adoration of the faithful, is to despise the Body and Blood of God made man, Jesus Christ Our Lord, Who is truly present therein. The sacrilege is great.

     Any such justification of the integrist revolt is not only a schism, but also quite clearly a heresy bearing on the Church and her sacraments. It is the sin against the Holy Spirit, and I tremble at the thought. For a bishop to leave a parish and its souls in the hands of those who promote schism and heresy, is to abandon part of his flock to ravenous wolves, and for a simple theologian responsible for what he writes to remain silent, is to make himself an accomplice of the evil which his silence would appear to authorise. As for the faithful who allow themselves to be taken in, they should weigh carefully the gravity of their decision! Our eternal salvation is at stake.¹⁰³"

APPENDIX II

THE DISCIPLINE OF THE SACRAMENTS:
THERE IS NO LOOPHOLE

     To combat the integrist chapels, to keep the faithful away from all schismatic dissidence, bishops, such as Mgr Orchampt, reminded those in their diocese of the sacramentary discipline practised in the Church, in accordance with the canon law in force. Now, Mgr Lefebvre’s reply to these bishops was that the members of the Sacerdotal Fraternity of Saint Pius X were exercising their ministry with the exceptional powers of jurisdiction granted them by canon law.

     Under these circumstances, in July 1978, the Abbé de Nantes will examine and determine with precision "what powers are left by the legislator to persecuted bishops and priests in times of spiritual violence, and what is absolutely denied to them, come what may of this for the good of souls."

     "The question of law so keenly posed in today’s Church", he wrote, "is this: Suppose that the hierarchy as a whole uses its power of legitimate coercion systematically to prevent bishops and priests of sound doctrine and holy zeal from exercising their ministry, and this with Rome’s consent. What can the persecuted do? Can they ignore the prohibition? No, officially replies Mgr Orchampt, the Bishop of Angers. Yes, publicly states Mgr Lefebvre.

The right of the persecuted

     "Let us suppose that the persecuted priest is persuaded that the sentence brought against him is null, illegal or unjust; then it is his clear duty to have the case judged by the supreme Magisterium of the Church, insofar as it lies within his power.

     "(1) And what if the authority sanctioning the priest appears to him illegitimate on account of heresy, schism, apostasy or control by an antichristic power? What if it seems that the Pope is no longer the pope or the Bishop a bishop? Then the priest must have this noted and declared officially by the competent Authority before considering himself free of the sanction wherewith he is struck. The alternative would be anarchy. To maintain that one can dispense with such a canonical judgement is an act of schism. In our wretched times such a case is no longer fanciful.

     "(2) And what if the sanction appears to be illegal because of some treachery or abuse of power or simply through some defect of form? It behoves the persecuted to appeal to higher jurisdiction. And should such an appeal prove to be too difficult to undertake or too long and hazardous to obtain, or should the sentence of the supreme Judge go against him, the persecuted priest cannot regard himself free of the sanction wherewith he is struck while its illegality has not been established by sentence of justice. Again, the alternative is pure anarchy for the same reasons as above.

     (3) Finally, what if the sanction appears to him as unjust and patently imposed to prevent him from immediately exercising his sacred ministry on behalf of souls – which is the case at present; consider for instance the unprecedented and unilateral nature of the sanctions taken against us, which give this exact impression – then what should, what can the persecuted priest do?

     Do not the saints all set an example of total submission? That is true, when it is only a question of their honour or their personal interest, in a word their amour propre. But when it is a matter of their neighbour’s good and especially of the supernatural good of souls, then they are seen to bestir themselves in defence of their rights, powers and privileges, with an impressive fierceness of charity, which displays no naivety, non-violence, timidity or servility. Look at Saint Teresa when making her foundations! But it is always done according to the Law, while scrupulously keeping within its ecclesiastical limits. They never overstep the Law, but always remain under its inviolable, incontestable guarantee.

     "So, while remaining faithful to the Church of all peoples and times and submitting to her laws, can a traditionalist sanctioned by an opposing authority – or for that matter a modernist punished by his integrist superiors – find some loophole in the Code of Canon Law enabling him to continue his ministry, for the good of souls, despite the excommunication, interdict or suspension levelled against him?

     "Canons 882, 1098 and 2261 have been invoked here, but what exactly do they say?"

No loophole

     The Abbé de Nantes then went on to demonstrate – giving special attention to the flawed argument of the danger of death… spiritual death! – that none of these canons could be invoked as the secret of escaping sanctions.

     No, one could not invoke any of these canons "in order to exercise powers that have been withdrawn from us, not even when the faithful request this from us for the good of their souls or when other priests are wanting.

     "Canon Law", he concluded, "presupposes justice in the bishops or at least in the Bishop of bishops, the final recourse, and consequently it obliges priests and simple bishops to submit absolutely to its sovereign judgements. That is understandable. Because the Church is One and unique by virtue of her Divine Founder’s will, it is out of the question that her Justice should authorise and her Law favour a proliferation of offshoots separated from the apostolic trunk, living as so many new schismatic churches. That is why he who is struck in his priestly powers is reduced to a truly wretched position, for there is no possibility of his leaving the Church in order to adhere to another, since no other exists. Nor can he freely exercise his ministry on the fringes of the Church, for his own consolation and that of his disciples, without thereupon feeling the need to return to the fold.

     "However, on every page the Law upholds a distinction that is of the greatest importance, namely the difference between the power of order and the power of jurisdiction. The first concerns divine worship and the priest’s private relationship with Jesus Christ; the second concerns, over and above this and in a more direct way, his life in ecclesiastical society. ‘The power of order’, writes Michiels, ‘is bound by divine institution to the rite of ordination and – once validly obtained – it cannot be removed by any ecclesiastical penal law… Thus the sacraments are generally celebrated validly, though illicitly, by an excommunicated, prohibited or suspended priest… because the power of order generally suffices for their celebration and distribution...’ " But there is one restriction which cannot be evaded:

     "An exception is made, however, for those sacraments which, in order to be administered validly, require, in addition to the power of order, the power of jurisdiction". We refer to the ecclesiastical legislator’s decision to make the power of absolving of sins and assisting at marriages depend on the power of jurisdiction for their very validity. These are as two barriers to dissidence, two withdrawals of power from the censured priest, to prevent him setting up perfect self-sufficient communities outside of ecclesiastical discipline. And these two points will prove to be the touchstone of the persecuted priest’s profound fidelity to the Catholic Church or of his definitive revolt and schism.

     "That is why we priests of the Catholic Counter Reformation, without recourse to juridical hair-splitting but strong in our own rights, having judged ourselves to have been unjustly struck, have nevertheless continued to use the full power of order proper to us in order to celebrate and distribute all those sacraments and sacramentals that can be validly administered by us for the good of our own souls and those of our immediate household. This is done with the noted tolerance of our pastors, without our ever once overstepping the limits imposed by the loss of our power of jurisdiction or claiming to absolve sins and bless marriages, which would be nothing but that empty simulacrum of the sacraments which is the mark of schism.

     "Of course, it is a miserable existence! But blessed be that wretchedness of persecuted priests who cannot free themselves from their Pastors by whom they have been struck, if it keeps them from schism and preserves them in Unity until the longed for hour of reconciliation.¹⁰⁴"