Brother Francis of Mary of the Angels

 

 

FOR THE CHURCH

FORTY YEARS
OF
CATHOLIC COUNTER-REFORMATION

 

 

VOLUME 3
AGAINST THE SCHISMATIC DRIFT
(1969-1978)





Front cover

     Saint Peter's Square, 10 April 1973, 10 am. The Abbé Georges de Nantes, surrounded by a small delegation from his "Roman Legion", heads towards the Bronze Door of the Vatican Palace, bearing his accusation against the reigning Pope, Paul VI. The action of the theologian of the Catholic Counter-Reformation is a canonical one. To obtain the opening of a trial against Paul VI, the supreme Judge in his own case, he comes to place at his feet, or failing that one of his representatives, a Libellus of accusation against his Person for heresy, schism and scandal, as well as a volume containing the list of four thousand Catholics who support his appeal.
     "I was with the Abbé de Nantes", Jacques Mourot will write, "among the sixty people who went down to the Bronze Door on 10 April. Along with him we came up against a barrage of police. Similarly, we were expelled on 11 April from the public audience, since the Holy Father did not wish to see us there. Well, never have I felt myself more Roman, more Roman Catholic, than I did during those sad moments. With all our being we felt ourselves fully at home in Rome, whereas the conciliar and papal Reform on the contrary appeared to be strange and out of keeping in that place, not at all Roman or Catholic."

 



     "I saw heresy and schism installed in the Holy Place, error and enmity in the very heart of the Church. I said and I wrote that this could not be tolerated, and that this disastrous state of the Church must be remedied in her Head and in her members.

     "It falls to us to see clearly and to speak up loudly, but not to do anything rash or break anything. One does not respond to schism with schism. If we were foolish enough to imagine that we could save the Church by carrying her off with us into the adventure of another schism, we who are nothing, it is we alone who would be irremediably lost."

Georges de Nantes, October 1969.

 



Back cover

     "Forty years of Catholic Counter-Reformation" is an historical work relating the theological combats of the Abbé de Nantes, from his priestly ordination on 27 March 1948.

Volume III. Against the schismatic drift. 1969-1978.

     After the promulgation of the new Order of the Mass, the Abbé de Nantes boldly entered the battle against the liturgical reform. He published the appeal attributed to Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci even before it had been handed to the Pope! However, from the autumn of 1969, the theologian of the Catholic Counter-Reformation had a new and even more pressing concern, that of defending the unity of the Church.

     His dramatic discussion on 21 July 1969 with certain integrist priests, the controversies over the validity of the new ordo missae, his refutation of the errors of the sedevacantists, and the foundation of the League of the Catholic Counter-Reformation... such are the events and writings narrated or quoted in this present volume, which need to be known in order to understand the supernatural wisdom with which the Abbé de Nantes led the traditionalists along the via media, between the abysses of schism and heresy during the 70's. The first campaign of the League, "Tomorrow, Vatican III", was the result of considerable theological labour, and it remains a treasure of doctrine which will have to be put into operation when the hour of the Catholic Renaissance comes.

     The detailed account of the appeal to Rome in April 1973, an event without precedent in the history of the Church, is enthralling: step by step we follow the Abbé de Nantes and the representatives of the League as they attempt to hand their canonical complaint to Pope Paul VI. Suddenly, the papal dereliction of duty hits one in the eye. Six months later, the Liber accusationis is distributed among the Roman clergy. The reactions, replies and confidences of eminent members of the Curia, such as Fathers Ciappi and Duroux, Mgr Mayer, and Cardinal Traglia, eloquently testify to the strength of the demonstrations and conclusions drawn by the theologian of the Catholic Counter-Reformation.

     The history of the relations between the Abbé de Nantes and Mgr Lefebvre is accurately retraced and clarified by several previously unpublished documents.

     The final chapter contains all the documents dealing with the talks the Abbé de Nantes had with Cardinal Marty and Mgr Etchegaray in 1978, with a view to a reconciliation. His request had only just been forwarded to Rome when the death of Paul VI occurred, in circumstances which appeared to confirm the justice of his analyses of the personality and the works of this pontiff. As for the election of Pope John Paul I – how marvellous! – it proved that, despite the conciliar reform, the Church remained a permanent miracle, a brilliant sign raised up among the nations.