The occupation of the parish church of Saint Nicolas-du-Chardonnet in Paris gave the members of the Fraternity an opportunity to assign the title of “parish priest” to the priest officiating in said church. The Abbé Laguérie took this claim so seriously that in a letter to the President of the Republic, Mitterrand, he addressed him as his parishioner!

     To be a parish priest involves rather more than simply occupying a parish church. This is something so obvious that it escapes no one. To be invested with such an office requires an appointment by the local bishop; the occupation of Saint Peter’s Basilica or the Lateran Basilica would not confer on the occupant the powers of the Vicar of Christ...

     But Mgr Lefebvre did not stop at Saint Nicolas’ in his drive to establish “true parishes”. On 27 October 1985, at Geneva, in the homily for the Mass of Christ the King, he pronounced these words: “I think that from now on we must regard our places of worship as true parishes. They are our parishes, where we baptise our children, where we take part in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, where children receive the true sacrament of Confirmation, where one can go to Confession. We must also receive all the other sacraments in our chapels, including the sacrament of marriage.” (Fideliter, no 49, January-February 1986, p. 20-21)

     Subsequently, following the episcopal consecrations, the idea of a “hierarchy of Tradition” gained ground, a hierarchy which was to stand in for, and actually supplant, the “official hierarchy”.

     On 10 March 1991, Mgr Tissier de Mallerais summarised this thesis thus: “Your priests – for they are your priests – your bishops, your parishes of tradition, do not possess an ordinary authority, but an extraordinary authority, a supplied authority.” (op. cit., p. 94) After having defined jurisdiction as “the power of the superior over his flock, of the shepherd over his sheep” (p. 96), Mgr Tissier allocated to the priests of the Fraternity a flock that would be confided to them by neither the bishops nor the Pope, but by the “Church”: “In a time of crisis, he said to his audience, it is clear that your priests cannot receive a flock from their superiors in the official Church, from the diocesan bishops or even from the Pope, because this is denied them. Therefore this authority over a flock will be given to them in another manner: by supply. It is the Church that has given your priests a power, like the power of the shepherd over his flock.” (p. 97)

     This text of Mgr Tissier already contains several contradictions. In the first place he sets the diocesan bishops and the Pope (that is to say the hierarchical Church) in opposition to the Church (as the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ): the Church is supposed to be able to concede what the Pope refuses. Then he appears to be in ignorance or denial of the fact that the one who grants supplied jurisdiction is in fact the Pope. Seeing that Mgr Tissier accepts that the Pope has refused jurisdiction to the priests of the Fraternity, we cannot see how this same Pope could at the same time concede it. Finally he makes out that supplied jurisdiction has the capacity to entrust the priest with a flock to be governed: which implies a plurality of persons entrusted to a pastor in a lasting manner. Now Mgr Tissier himself explains, a little later, that supplied jurisdiction is, on the contrary, exercised on behalf of private individuals on a case by case basis. How then can he speak of a flock?

     The ambiguity of Mgr Tissier de Mallerais’ thesis, as set out in 1991, can again be seen when he speaks – for the first time to my knowledge – about a “hierarchy of the Fraternity” or a “hierarchy of Tradition” (p. 106). This is not the hierarchy of the Church (p. 104) even though it “resembles it” (p. 105). The Fraternity, as we know, does not accept sedevacantism and regards itself as being continually in communion with the hierarchy of what it calls the “conciliar Church” or the “official Church”: the Pope and the diocesan bishops (p. 104). It flanks this hierarchy with a hierarchy “of supply”, the “hierarchy of Tradition”. But in reality the faithful are not allowed to address the “official” hierarchy, only the hierarchy of “Tradition”. Given the fact that “the hierarchy (cf. can. 108 § 3) has in large part distanced itself from the Catholic faith, generally speaking the faithful are unable to receive spiritual aid from it without endangering their faith” (Ordinances, p. 5; Resurrection no 2, p. 20). That is why, “even in cases where there is in fact no strict necessity” (ibid., p. 6), the faithful must have recourse to the “hierarchy of Tradition”, which in practice does not consist of all priests faithful to this tradition, but only of those in the Fraternity. And as the Fraternity already contains a structured hierarchy (simple priest, prior, district superior, superior general), the hierarchy of Tradition will be structured on the same model. “Absolutely speaking, with regard to the faithful, simple priests have no less supplied power than a prior or district superior. But as a matter of practicality, in order to preserve the hierarchical dimension that belongs to the spirit of the Church and to assign more serious cases to superior authority, certain powers are reserved to the higher ranks as they are in the normal hierarchy, in accordance with the following rules:

     Priors and priests in charge of chapels are equivalent to private priests, such as military chaplains (so it is not a matter of a genuinely supplied jurisdiction on a case by case basis, but of a personal prelature, which implies an ordinary jurisdiction, ed.).

     District superiors, seminaries and independent houses as well as the Superior General and his assistants, although in theory they only have jurisdiction over their subjects (priests, seminarians, brothers, oblates and members of their household), are equivalent to military Ordinaries, with regard to the faithful whose priests have the care of souls (sic). Same observation as before.

     The bishops of the Society, though deprived of any territorial jurisdiction, nevertheless possess the suppletory jurisdiction necessary to exercise the powers attached to the episcopal order AND CERTAIN ACTS OF ORDINARY EPISCOPAL JURISDICTION. Hence they claim jurisdiction not only for the sanctification of souls by means of the power of order, but also for the government of souls (Ordinances, p. 7).

     In addition to these parallel hierarchical structures, the Fraternity also created in 1991 the “Canonical Commission” and a “bishop responsible for those in religious life” “to continue after his death the office that Mgr Lefebvre had fulfilled in a suppletory manner in this area from 1970 to 1991” (Ordinances, p. 8), to make up for the shortcomings of the Roman Congregations (and here, in particular, the dispensations and verdicts of the tribunals of the Fraternity replace and usurp the powers of the Holy See, the Sacred Penitentiary, the Propaganda of the Faith, and the Congregations for Religious, for the Sacraments and for the Eastern Churches).

     The Fraternity has therefore created in fact, if not in right and principle, a stable hierarchical structure which, for the faithful, replaces the priest, the diocesan bishop and the Holy See (Congregations and Tribunals). The only thing missing in the Fraternity’s hierarchy is the Pope; but John Paul II – verbally acknowledged as Pope – can hardly be said to fulfil this function, for it is normally forbidden to have recourse to him.

     Finally let us note that the powers of this hierarchy “of tradition” are not only exercised over the members of the Fraternity and its faithful; they are also exercised over other “traditional” realities which exist outside the Fraternity. If a supplied jurisdiction as conceived by the Fraternity were to exist, it should logically involve – on the same basis – “all bishops and all priests faithful to tradition”, as the Ordinances recognise (p. 6). We cannot see therefore why everyone must submit to the Tribunals of the Fraternity but not to those which might be created – with the same authority – by other traditionalist Institutes, and, what is more, why “religious” who are outside the Fraternity should be subject, for the dispensation of vows for example, to the “bishop for religious” instituted by the Fraternity, while members of the Fraternity have to address themselves to the Superior General (Ordinances, p. 45). What justification is there, we wonder, for the bishop for religious, Mgr de Galarreta, having more powers than the Superior of the Dominicans in Avrillé or that of the Capuchins of Morgon, for example, to grant an “Indult of laicisation” to the Brothers of said monasteries (in reality none of them has the power to grant this indult). The only possible answer is that the Society of Saint Pius X, although denying it in word and principle, effectively considers its own internal hierarchy to be the true hierarchy of the Church.

     This is exactly what our Father foresaw in February 1977, in the English CRC n^o 83 referred to above, where he says of Mgr Lefebvre: «If he is the sole successor of the Apostles today, then his authority alone must stand in the eyes of both men and God as the fount of law.»

     Father Ricossa then examines one by one the arguments with which the Fraternity attempts to justify its usurpation of all the powers granted by Our Lord Jesus Christ to Peter and his successors.

     We have seen how this institution by the Fraternity of a parallel hierarchy and of actual ecclesiastical tribunals are matters of an extreme gravity: some, with good reason, have spoken of schism.

     Here one would have expected names... Honesty would have obliged Father Ricossa to mention the Abbé de Nantes in the front rank (cf. the editorial referred to above, p. 18) And why not? What is the obstacle stopping Father Ricossa from recognising that the Abbé de Nantes has «with good reason spoken of schism», ever since 1970! The answer to this question can be discovered in a footnote wherein Father Ricossa states his full agreement with the judgement passed by the Ordinances on the New Code, «imbued with ecumenism and personalism», and then goes on to draw from this a «conclusion which, for him, is logical and inescapable: the total invalidity of the New Code and the absolutely certain observation that John Paul II does not possess divinely assisted authority (he is not Pope... formaliter)».

     So Father Ricossa has fallen from Charybdis into Scylla: having escaped from the schism of Lefebvre, he has toppled into that of Guérard. But let us leave this discussion for the moment, and follow Father Ricossa as he opens people’s eyes to the schism... of others! It is all of an unquestionable interest.

     Now, faced with such a grave question, what is the first argument put forth by Mgr Tissier de Mallerais in Cor unum to demonstrate the legitimacy of the Fraternity’s tribunals? “Monsignor Lefebvre, he writes, had foreseen the creation of a Canonical Commission, particularly to resolve matrimonial cases following a first judgement given by the district superior. The authority of our founder suffices for us to accept these legal proceedings in the same way that we have accepted the episcopal consecrations of 1988.” (Cor unum, p. 37, Status quæstionis)

	Photo of a very young Mgr Marcel Lefebvre as a Holy Ghost Father, published in the parish newsletter “le Chardonnet” of April 1992, applying a liturgical anthem in honour of Saint Martin to him (cf. CRC May 1992)!

     It is indeed of an implacable logic. On 30 June 1988, Mgr Lefebvre had conferred episcopal consecration on four priests in his Fraternity, one of whom was Mgr Tissier. On the very next day, our Father wrote:

     «Mgr Lefebvre, or rather his four bishops of nowhere, having yet again claimed, at the very moment of their schismatic consecration, to be in communion with the Pope who has just excommunicated them, will be beset by the temptation – logical after all! – to proclaim that the Church of Rome has condemned herself in condemning them, and that John Paul II, in excommunicating them, has ipso facto excommunicated himself. And so they will have to hold a conclave among themselves in order to elect a successor worthy of the popes of Tradition, just as Mgr Lefebvre has, in their own persons, given the priests of Tradition bishops who are worthy to perpetuate them.» (English CRC n^o 211, June 1988, p. 2) If truth be told, this “conclave” was held the very same day of the consecrations; and Mgr Lefebvre was unanimously elected ipso facto by the four priests who had agreed to be consecrated bishops by him...

     This is not the first time that Mgr Tissier has made statements of this kind in connection with the episcopal consecrations. We have already stated in Sodalitium what one should think of these “candid admissions” by Mgr Tissier and other representatives of the Fraternity. They apply extreme restrictions to the Pope’s infallibility whilst placing no limits on that of Mgr Lefebvre. Thus Mgr Tissier, as we have already written, “substitutes a bishop for the Pope as the criterion of Catholicity. In this way Mgr Tissier completely revolutionizes the divine constitution of the Church, by opposing the charisma of a (presumed) sanctity to that of papal authority.” The text of Mgr Tissier that we are commenting on – contemporary with that which we denounced in its time: they are both from 1998 – confirms, alas, the “charismatic” drift of the Fraternity, but certainly does not provide an adequate argument for the legitimacy of its tribunals, regardless of the respect and esteem in which Mgr Lefebvre may be held.

THE FRATERNITY TRIES TO JUSTIFY ITS POSITION BY DENYING ANY USURPATION OF THE POPE’S POWER. IN REALITY IT IS OPPOSED TO THE POPE’S PRIMACY OF JURISDICTION.

     In his article published in Cor unum, Mgr Tissier attempts to justify the “legitimacy of our matrimonial tribunals”. How can one not be astonished at how few lines he devotes to this initial difficulty despite its apparent insurmountability: by acting in this way, is not the Fraternity usurping a power which belongs to the Pope by divine right? Mgr Tissier is content to answer: “It is true that our verdicts of the third instance replace the verdicts of the Roman Rota, which acts in the Pope’s name as a tribunal of the third instance. But this is not a usurpation of the Pope’s divinely endowed authority, for the reservation of this third instance to the Pope is merely a matter of ecclesiastical law!” (Cor unum, IV, 5, p. 43)

     The enthusiastic exclamation mark cannot disguise the weakness of this answer by the President of the Fraternity’s Canonical Commission. It may be true, historically, that it was only late in the day that the Holy See reserved to itself the final degree of judgement in matrimonial cases, and therefore as a matter of ecclesiastical right, just as it only gradually imposed the obligation to obtain a Roman mandate for episcopal consecrations; transeamus.

     The real point is rather the following: by laying claim to powers which are purely jurisdictional and lie outside the Pope’s control (and even in opposition to him, despite their admission of John Paul II’s legitimacy), is not the Fraternity violating the Pope’s primacy of jurisdiction which belongs to him by divine right? The response can only be in the affirmative.

     I first recall what was stated in canon 1569 § 1, which has stayed the same in the New Code (canon 1417 § 1). There it says:

     “By virtue of the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, any of the faithful may refer their case to the judgement of the Holy See, whether the case be contentious or penal, at any grade of judgement or at any stage of the suit, or they may introduce it directly before the same Holy See.” (cf. Vatican I, Dogmatic Constitution Pastor aeternus, Denz. Sch. 3063)

     Now, in matrimonial cases, since the Roman Rota’s judgements of the third instance (i.e. the judgements of the tribunal of the Holy See) have been superseded by the verdicts of the Fraternity’s tribunal, the faithful are prevented from referring their case to the judgement of the Holy See. For this reason the institution of tribunals by the Fraternity’s Canonical Commission to replace those of the Holy See represents an attack on the primacy of the Sovereign Pontiff.

     Now it is a matter of divine right that the primacy of jurisdiction belongs to the Sovereign Pontiff (Denz. Sch. 3059).

THE INSTITUTION OF TRIBUNALS IN THE FRATERNITY IS THEREFORE CONTRARY TO DIVINE LAW AND NOT JUST TO ECCLESIASTICAL LAW, AND THAT IS WHY IT CANNOT BE JUSTIFIED EVEN IN CASES OF NEED.

     It is possible to arrive at the same conclusion through an argument that is even more radical, i.e. by prescinding altogether from the question of an appeal to the Holy See. For the Fraternity could give up the idea of substituting itself for the Rota and content itself with standing in for the diocesan tribunals: could this be done without in fact denying the Sovereign Pontiff’s primacy of jurisdiction (whether the see is vacant or, with even more reason, occupied)? We think not.

     For, “the Roman Pontiff, the Successor of Saint Peter in the primacy, possesses not only a primacy of honour, but also a supreme and complete power of jurisdiction over the whole Church, both in matters of faith and morals as well as in those that affect discipline and Church government throughout the world. This power is truly episcopal, ordinary and immediate both for each and every one of the churches, as well as for every individual pastor and member of the faithful; it is a power that is independent of any kind of human authority.” (can. 218; cf. Vatican I, Dogmatic Constitution PASTOR ÆTERNUS, Denz. S. 3059-3064). Consequently, he is “Supreme Judge of the whole Catholic world” (can. 1597; cf. Denz. Sch. 3063).

     Now the fact is that the Fraternity’s judges claim to possess a jurisdiction – albeit one of supply – outside of and even in opposition to him who holds the full powers of jurisdiction over the Church. They make judgements in disregard of the supreme judge and, what is more, in opposition to his judgement. Consequently the Fraternity’s tribunals, its judges and verdicts, void the Pope’s primacy of jurisdiction of any real significance, reducing it to a matter of empty words.

     To explain this argument more clearly, I remark that if the diocesan or metropolitan bishops function as judges in the Church, it is because they have received from the Pope a diocese or archdiocese to be governed. To establish tribunals that replace the diocesan tribunals without authorization from the supreme judge, the Pope, is equivalent to attributing to oneself the authority of the diocesan bishop: “In the Church (and this is a dogma of faith) the Pope has the plenitude of jurisdiction: there is no jurisdiction other than his; any jurisdictional matter, whatever its level, is but a part of the whole which is exercised in his name and, in the final analysis, in the name of Jesus Christ who has given it (the jurisdiction) to him (the Pope); it (this part) must be exercised in harmony with the whole and in an established manner. It is from God that the Pope’s authority comes and, through him, the authority of the bishops and, through them, that of the judges; that is why in the final analysis all jurisdiction is papal.” (Orlando Fedeli)

     To use an analogy, it is in the name of public authority that the judge dispenses civil sentences. For a court to be administered by private citizens, either as individuals or in association, is something quite inconceivable and inadmissible. However, this is precisely how the Fraternity behaves in the Church, as Orlando Fedeli stresses:

     “Neither the Scriptures nor the Magisterium have ever taught that private persons may implement an ad hoc system of justice...”

     It is exactly as if a magistrate in Marseilles were to come, of his own authority, and pass judgements in Paris, alleging that the chief magistrate of the high court failed to come up to his standards or was issuing bad judgements. It is exorbitant or, to be more precise, aberrant, atypical.

ONE EXAMPLE. THE FRATERNITY TRIES TO JUSTIFY ITS POSITION BY DECLARING THAT JURISDICTION DOES NOT COME FROM THE POPE, BUT FROM EPISCOPAL CONSECRATION. PIUS XII REFUTES THIS ERROR.

     The Fraternity’s theologians might object to our arguments that, although the Pope enjoys the primacy of jurisdiction which is why all must be subject to him, it is possible to receive jurisdiction without going through the Pope. This is what is maintained for example by the Abbé François Pivert, the inspirational force behind the Canonical Commission and one of its three members (along with Mgr Tissier and the Abbé Laroche). He writes: “Rather than saying that in the Church every power derives from the Pope, it would be truer to say that, in the Church, ever power must be submitted to the Pope.” The author of this assertion does not seem, at least in this article, to realise exactly what he is writing, nor does he appear to justify his position. I shall limit myself to proving its falsehood.

     The Fathers of the Council of Trent had lengthy discussions about whether the bishop’s power of jurisdiction came to him directly from God (by episcopal consecration) or through the Pope.

     In the first case, the Abbé Pivert would be right in holding that the power of jurisdiction in the Church does not derive from the Pope, even though it must be subject to him. In the second case, on the other hand, he would be wrong.

     I have already dealt at some length with this question in my answer to the Abbé Belmont; I therefore refer the reader to this.

     Father Ricossa here refers to number 44 of the review Sodalitium, available from the Centro Librario Sodalitium, Verrua Savoia. It will be sent free to anyone who asks for it at the following address:

     For those who will content themselves with this study, two quotations will suffice, one in favour of the Abbé Pivert’s thesis, the other against. In favour, and in keeping with the Gallicans of every kind, we have the teaching of Vatican II (Lumen gentium, no 21): “Episcopal consecration confers, together with the office of sanctifying, the duty also of teaching and ruling, which, however, of their very nature can be exercised only in hierarchical communion with the head and members of the college.” (cf. also can. 375 § 2 of the New Code)

     Therefore, despite the Pope’s primacy, the power of jurisdiction does not derive from him apparently, exactly as the Abbé Pivert maintains!

     But against his position (and that of Vatican II) there exist numerous texts of the ordinary magisterium. I will quote but one of these, the Encylical AD APOSTOLORUM PRINICIPIS of Pope Pius XII (29 June 1958):

     “For jurisdiction passes to bishops only through the Roman Pontiff as We stated in Our Encyclical MYSTICI CORPORIS: Each bishop, as far as his own diocese is concerned, feeds and governs, like a true shepherd and in the name of Christ, the flock entrusted to him. Yet in exercising this office the bishops are not altogether independent but are subordinate to the lawful authority of the Roman Pontiff, and although they enjoy an ordinary power of jurisdiction, this power is directly communicated to them through the Supreme Pontiff. We referred to this teaching in the Encyclical Letter addressed to you, AD SINARUM GENTEM: The power of jurisdiction which is directly conferred by divine right on the Supreme Pontiff comes to bishops by that same right, but only through the successor of Saint Peter…”

     Last January we recalled how Pope Pius XII, as a response to the institution of an “autonomous Church” in China, decreed ipso facto excommunication for all bishops, whatever their rite or nationality, who had not been appointed or confirmed by the Apostolic See, as well as for any bishop involved in their consecration (Resurrection n^o 1, January 2001, p. 9). The reference is well-judged and very telling! The schism of Mgr Lefebvre and that of the “official” and “patriotic” Chinese Church are like brothers…

     Consequently the Pope not only possesses the primacy of jurisdiction in the sense that none can exercise jurisdiction without his consent, but he also possesses the primacy of jurisdiction in the sense that every power of jurisdiction derives from him. For the Pope (setting aside any question of John Paul II’s legitimacy) has never giver jurisdiction to the bishops consecrated by Mgr Lefebvre, and as the jurisdiction enjoyed by a Bishop can only come through the Pope, it follows that these Bishops have no jurisdiction, and the Canonical Commission of the Society of Saint Pius X even less so.

     Therefore, to lay claim to a jurisdiction – as does the Canonical Commission in question – is equivalent to denying the Primacy and accomplishing a schismatic act.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE. THE FRATERNITY TRIES TO JUSTIFY ITS POSITION BY DECLARING THAT JURISDICTION DOES NOT COME FROM THE POPE, BUT FROM THE CHURCH, BY MEANS OF SUPPLY. REFUTATION OF THIS THESIS.

     We have shown that “the Roman Pontiff is the source of every power and jurisdiction in the Church”. But are there not any exceptions to this rule to be found in the doctrine of supplied jurisdiction? Any jurisdiction – ordinary or delegated – comes from the Roman Pontiff of course; but not supplied jurisdiction which comes from the Church: Ecclesia supplet! And it is precisely to supplied jurisdiction that the Fraternity refers to justify the power of jurisdiction it attributes to itself.

     We have seen within what limits and in what sense one can appeal to supplied jurisdiction in the Church’s current situation by republishing an excellent article by the Abbé Belmont. In can. 209 (New Code, can. 144), the Code explicitly provides for supplied jurisdiction in cases where common error and positive doubt are probable, and to these one can add the case of the danger of death (can. 882; New Code, can. 976).

     “Thus, in the whole Code of Canonical Law, there are only two canons which deal with supplied jurisdiction”, as one of the Fraternity’s priests admits; “supplied jurisdiction places us in a very unusual situation: the priest from whom the layman seeks help does not enjoy ordinary jurisdiction (for ourselves, there is no positive or probable doubt about the existence of this jurisdiction, ed.). However, the sacramental act is still licit, either because the layman does not know the situation of the minister (this is common error) or because he has an urgent and pressing need of the sacrament (this is the danger of death).” The admission that common error cannot normally be invoked (“those who call on us are usually aware that the bishops have refused us any power”) means that only the danger of death remains.

     But traditionalist priests do not limit their ministry to recovery rooms! Therefore, as we have seen, Mgr Lefebvre invoked the danger of spiritual death in which all the faithful find themselves as a result of modernism. That the current situation justifies priestly ministry without jurisdiction is something we are in perfect agreement on…

     Not us! We are in complete disagreement. One cannot answer heresy with schism! The Abbé de Nantes has constantly preached this truth for more than thirty years, in the wilderness:

     «We must stay put, resigned to being punished, to suffering and to obeying whatever is not forbidden or intolerable, as martyrs for Catholic Unity and Charity... We must reject everything that is commanded for the purpose of subversion and not let ourselves be penalised without protesting. But never, never ever, will we contest the unique inviolable power of jurisdiction that belongs to the Pope and to the bishops united to him. Even though they behave unjustly, it is they who are the Catholic hierarchy, not ourselves. One cannot save the Church by building on other foundations.» (French CRC n^o 25, October 1969, p. 12)

     … but to attempt to legitimise such a ministry by referring to canon law, either by extending the logic of canon 882 to cover the danger of spiritual death of by invoking canon 20, appears to us absolutely unfounded!

     And then, what is one to say when supplied jurisdiction is invoked not to render sacramental acts licit (or even valid) but to replace the legislative or judicial power of the Church, considered untrustworthy?

     Rightly does Fedeli object: “If one were to systematically apply the logic lying behind the creation of the commissions, in practice not a single function of Church government would remain that is still legitimate and has no need of being substituted; even the Church herself would have to be replaced. How far can one go?”; “if this (the state of necessity experienced by the faithful) gives us the right to set ourselves up as alternative judges and assume a suppletory authority, I cannot see why we should not also, and with far greater reason, assume all the organs of government, especially liturgical and doctrinal ones, as in this case both necessity and the right to reliable teaching include not only those with matrimonial problems but the whole Church and all mankind, since these have the right to know true Catholic doctrine, a doctrine which is not professed by this authority despite the fact that we continue to recognise it. Annulments (of marriage) are only part of the problem. A large number of legal rights affecting a great many people need to be protected from error, not only personalist errors, but errors in all domains; but from there to believing oneself invested with judicial power to fill and solve this real vacuum” is a far cry!

     But this criticism of the possibility of applying supplied jurisdiction to legitimise the Fraternity’s Canonical Commission can be maintained by a more radical argument. For what in fact is the true meaning of the term Ecclesia supplet, the Church supplies?

     Here is how Mgr Tissier de Mallerais explains this legal adage in his conference of 10 March 1991: “It is a matter of supplying for the priest’s or bishop’s lack of jurisdiction, Ecclesia supplet. IT WILL NOT BE THE POPE OR THE DIOCESAN HIERARCHY WHO WILL PROVIDE US WITH A FLOCK, IT WILL BE THE CHURCH, Our Lord Jesus Christ, as head of His Mystical Body who will sanction, who will in short declare a situation of necessity to exist among the faithful.”

     And he goes on: “It is a situation where the Church will directly confer jurisdiction on the priest, without passing through the various degrees of the hierarchy; the Mystical Body of Our Lord, Our Lord Himself as Head of His Church will give jurisdiction to priests in particular cases”; and having quoted the three cases provided for by the Code (common error, positive doubt and danger of death), the Fraternity’s bishop continues:

     “In this case, the Church opens wide the doors of her mercy and grants jurisdiction to the priest. This is done by the Church herself, without passing through the hierarchy [!].”

     According to the President of the Canonical Commission, the “Church” which, in certain particular cases, grants jurisdiction to priests who lack it, is completely distinct from the Hierarchy as such, and must be identified with both the Mystical Body of Christ (Our Lord united to all the faithful) and Christ, the Head of the Church. This interpretation of the term “Church” employed by the Code of Canon Law is completely false.

     On the subject of supplied jurisdiction, Cardinal Staffa, for example, writes in the Enciclopedia Cattolica: “CANON 209 ELIMINATES ANY UNCERTAINTY (on the possibility of supply), BY DECLARING THAT THE CHURCH (THAT IS TO SAY THE SUPREME LEGISLATOR) SUPPLIES JURISDICTION IN BOTH THE EXTERNAL FORUM AS WELL AS THE INTERNAL FORUM: A) IN THE CASE OF COMMON ERROR; B) IN THE CASE OF POSITIVE AND PROBABLE DOUBT BOTH DE IURE AND DE FACTO.”

     Cardinal Palazzini expresses himself no differently: supplied jurisdiction, he writes, “IS THE JURISDICTION POSSESSED NOT BY ASSUMING AN OFFICE, NOR IS IT CONFERRED BY THE DELEGATION OF A SUPERIOR, BUT IT IS GIVEN BY THE LAW ITSELF, THAT IS BY THE CHURCH AND, THROUGH HER, BY THE SUPREME ECCLESIASTICAL LEGISLATOR AT THE VERY MOMENT THAT IT IS EXERCISED (ad modum actus) FOR THE GOOD OF SOULS WHO WOULD OTHERWISE, WITHOUT ANY FAULT ON THEIR PART, SUFFER HARM.”

     Thus when the Code attributes jurisdiction in abstracto (in the abstract) to the Church in concreto (concretely), it attributes it to the supreme ecclesiastical Legislator, i.e. to the Pope. And this is only logical, seeing that the provisions of the Code (at least those relating to ecclesiastical law) have no value unless they are duly promulgated by the Supreme Legislator, the Pope! The supplied jurisdiction of which the Code speaks consequently has nothing to do with the “supply” imagined and described by Mgr Tissier de Mallerais, who makes out that its characteristic is to operate “without passing through the hierarchy”, and therefore without passing through the Pope either.

     The reason why Mgr Tissier persists in wanting to deny that the Pope is the source of the supplied jurisdiction claimed by the Fraternity is obvious: it is because John Paul II, recognised by Econe as the Pope, refuses them any kind of jurisdiction, as Mgr Tissier himself admits. If, therefore, it is the Pope who grants supplied jurisdiction, even though he should do this through the law he has himself promulgated, one obviously cannot claim that John Paul II has granted the Society of Saint Pius X, personally excommunicated by him, powers so exorbitant that he has explicitly refused them in other respects. So here again stand refuted the claims made by the Fraternity: the priests of Fraternity do not enjoy the supplied jurisdiction attributed to them by Mgr Tissier de Mallerais and the Abbé Pivert.

     At this point, Father Ricossa writes in a footnote: «The reader might be wondering what is our own position on this subject. For, it is not only the priests of the Society of Saint Pius X who are deprived of all ordinary and delegated jurisdiction, but also all those who are opposed to Vatican II.»

     It is worth pointing out that it is not his opposition to Vatican II that has earned Father Ricossa his loss of jurisdiction. As he himself explained earlier, from 1976 onwards priests ordained in the Fraternity were suspended a divinis, as was Mgr Lefebvre who ordained them. Father Ricossa, ordained within the Fraternity in 1982, was therefore suspended... from the very first day of his priesthood! Not because of some unspecified “opposition to Vatican II” – seeing that Mgr Lefebvre had signed all the Acts of the Council (English CRC n^o 264, Jan 1994, p. 23 ff) – but by an act of unjustified disobedience to a Pope whom Mgr Lefebvre declared “liberal” in opposition to the Abbé de Nantes who described him as a heretic, a schismatic and an apostate!

     Under the title «STRIKE THE HEAD!» the Abbé de Nantes recapitulated, in February 1975, «the great design» put into effect by Pope Paul VI in the first ten years of the post-Council: «To form, throughout the world, with the assistance of all “men of good will” whatever be their religion, a great Movement for the Spiritual Animation of Universal Democracy, a MASDU».

     Faced with this immense apostasy, our Father concluded: «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.» (French CRC n^o 89, p. 2)

     Mgr Lefebvre, summoned by Cardinals Garrone and Tabera to disown the Abbé de Nantes, replied to him in an open letter published in the review Itinéraires on 19 March: «Know that if a bishop breaks with Rome, it will not be me [...] With Pope Paul VI, we denounce neo-modernism, the self-destruction of the Church, the smoke of Satan in the Church.» With Pope Paul VI? Then, why disobey him one year later by ordaining priests against his formal wishes?

     In July 1975, the Abbé de Nantes wrote: «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.» (French CRC n^o 94, p. 2)

     We are still waiting, and Father Guérard des Lauriers, followed by Father Ricossa, himself a dissident of the lefebvrist dissidence, hardly correspond to this expectation! «If we are not even able to invoke the supplied jurisdiction that comes from the Pope, how can we defend the liceity of our ministry?» continues Father Ricossa. In no way! replies the Abbé de Nantes. But the ex-lefebvrist does not listen to him. He has found something better: not that Father Guérard des Lauriers has the power to make licit what is not, but he eliminates the essence of the problem by claiming – according to his disciple Father Ricossa’s summarisation of his position – that «the Apostolic See is formally (but not materially) vacant».

     This is obviously the “perfect” solution: «The fact that the See is formally vacant, continues Father Ricossa, means that since in practice there is no Pope to function as the source of ecclesiastical jurisdiction (and the same goes for the rest of the hierarchy, who enjoy ordinary or delegated jurisdiction), there is no one in the Church today who possesses any kind of jurisdiction, be it ordinary, delegated or supplied by law. And this is true not only for those who adhere to Vatican II, but also for those who oppose it.»

     In other words, the whole ecclesiastical hierarchy has vanished. To evade this conclusion which would be an admission of apostasy, Father Ricossa, following the line taken by Father Guérard des Lauriers, writes: «The power of order (for the glory of God with the offering of the Sacrifice, and for the salvation of souls with the administration of the sacraments, evangelisation, etc.) cannot and must not disappear; it can therefore be licitly exercised even by priests who lack the power of jurisdiction, in accordance with the (traditional) rites of the Church. To deny this last point would involve denying the continuity of the Church as Christ willed it.» So there we see ourselves excommunicated by Father Ricossa, we and «the adherents of Vatican II» all lumped together! But if anyone is in error in this matter, it is quite clearly him!

     And what is more, without intending it, he is even going to prove this himself. Let us continue our reading.

ONE LAST POSSIBILITY: COULD JURISDICTION COME FROM THE FAITHFUL?

     If the jurisdiction claimed by the Fraternity does not come from above (Christ, Church, Pope), one could hypothesise that it draws its origin from below, i.e. from the faithful. The Fraternity may not affirm this explicitly, but there is no shortage of infelicitous phrases to support such an interpretation, as a priest from this same Fraternity candidly acknowledges:

     “In his circular letter of 30 June 1994, the Abbé Berger correctly put his finger on the impossibility of such a hypothesis:

     “The thesis that holds sway in the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X is that expressed by Mgr Tissier in his conference at Paris in March 1991... Ultimately supplied jurisdiction derives from the requests of the faithful, on a case by case basis... The democratic nature of such a thesis is very awkward, and I fail to see how it can be reconciled with the hierarchical structure of the Church, where the apostolate is necessarily based on a mission that can only come from above.”

     This reminder is far from vain. It is obvious that supplied jurisdiction does not draw its origin from the faithful. In the talk referred to by our former colleague (otherwise known as the Abbé Berger, who left the Society of Saint Pius X and accepted Vatican II, ed.), Mgr Tissier de Mallerais therefore used inappropriate expressions when he stated: “It is a jurisdiction which essentially depends on the faithful and not on the priest”, and “one can say that you give the priest the necessary jurisdiction.”

     Sodalitium (no 26, December 1991) had itself already denounced these “inappropriate expressions” in an article (which I have previously referred to) with the significant title: “The authority of the bishop: is it mediated through the Pope or through the faithful?” It seems opportune to reproduce part of this article as it reports expressions used Mgr Lefebvre that are even more inappropriate than those used by Mgr Tissier: “When in June 1988 Mgr Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without Roman mandate, he violated the first condition of liceity by declaring that John Paul II is not truly Pope, but not the second: he did not attribute ordinary jurisdiction to his Bishops.

     “However three of Mgr Lefebvre’s posthumous documents published in Fideliter (no 82, July-August 1991, p. 13-17) have left us astonished and dismayed.

     “We refer to a letter addressed to Mgr Castro Mayer on 4 December 1990, and another to Father Rifan on 20 February 1991, along with a Note regarding the new bishop, the future successor of Mgr de Castro Mayer.

     “There Mgr Lefebvre specifies the powers to be enjoyed by the future consecrand (Mgr Licinio Rangel, consecrated in Campos on 28 July 1991).

     “This is what Archbishop Lefebvre writes:

     ... THE CASE OF THE DIOCESE OF CAMPOS IS SIMPLER, BECAUSE HERE THE MAJORITY OF DIOCESAN PRIESTS AND FAITHFUL, ACTING ON THE ADVICE OF THE PREVIOUS BISHOP, DESIGNATED HIS SUCCESSOR AND ASKED OTHER CATHOLIC BISHOPS TO CONSECRATE HIM... THIS WAS THE MANNER IN WHICH EPISCOPAL SUCCESSION OPERATED IN THE FIRST CENTURIES, IN UNION WITH ROME AS WE OURSELVES ARE, IN UNION WITH CATHOLIC ROME BUT NOT WITH MODERNIST ROME.

     “It is all well and good that people and clergy should designate the bishop, but do they also give him authority and jurisdiction?

     “We became a little suspicious:

     IT IS THE CLERGY AND THE FAITHFUL OF CAMPOS WHO ARE GIVING THEMSELVES A SUCCESSOR OF THE APOSTLES, A ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP, SINCE THEY ARE NO LONGER ABLE TO OBTAIN ONE FROM MODERNIST ROME.

     “However, there is already in Campos a bishop nominated by the Pope and enthroned, at the time, by Mgr de Castro Mayer. Is this new SUCCESSOR OF THE APOSTLES only receiving the power of order (to ordain priests, to confirm, etc.) or is he also receiving the power of jurisdiction? The power of order is given by Bishops: what then do THE CLERGY AND THE FAITHFUL of Campos give? Authority?

     “Well yes, authority. Mgr Lefebvre speaks of EPISCOPAL AUTHORITY. The new bishop is not a residential Bishop but has a jurisdiction which comes... from the clergy and from the faithful: HE HAS NO OTHER TITLE TO JURISDICTION [so he does have one title then! ed.] THAN THAT WHICH COMES FROM THE CALL OF THE PRIESTS AND THE FAITHFUL... WHO HAVE ASKED HIM TO ACCEPT THE EPISCOPACY. Does this refer to this a simple de facto authority, a simple power of administering the sacraments and guiding souls, something already included in the power of order? We may well doubt this given the fact that Mgr Lefebvre insists on speaking of A JURISDICTIONAL AUTHORITY OF THE BISHOP WHICH COMES TO HIM NOT BY NOMINATION FROM ROME, BUT FROM THE NECESSITY OF SAVING SOULS. THE FAITHFUL AND PRIESTS SHOULD HELP THIS SUCCESSOR OF THE APOSTLES EXERCISE HIS AUTHORITY BY SHOWING HIM A GENEROUS OBEDIENCE.

     “We now come to a more explicit affirmation: SINCE THE JURISDICTION OF THE BISHOP IS NOT TERRITORIAL BUT PERSONAL AND HAS AS ITS SOURCE THE DUTY OF SAVING THE SOULS OF THE FAITHFUL, SHOULD A GROUP OF THE FAITHFUL IN THE NEIGHBOURING DIOCESES CALL UPON THE BISHOP TO GIVE THEM A PRIEST, THIS GROUP WOULD BY THAT VERY FACT GIVE THE BISHOP THE POWER OF WATCHING OVER THE TRANSMISSION OF FAITH AND GRACE IN THIS GROUP THROUGH THE INTERMEDIARY OF THE PRIEST HE SENDS.

     “A group of the faithful, therefore, apparently gives power, authority and jurisdiction to the Bishop. Making a distinction between territorial and personal jurisdiction does not in any way change the gravity of such an affirmation: a military Ordinary, for example, (that is to say a bishop having personal jurisdiction over all the military personnel of a nation), and a residential bishop with jurisdiction over the residents of a diocese are no different in respect of the jurisdiction they have received from the Pope.

     To this thesis (jurisdiction comes from the people) I can only answer using an argument I used nine years ago: “No one can give what he does not have: if the people (or the Church distinct from the Pope) give power, then this can only be because the people or the Church have authority. This of course is the Jansenist thesis maintained at the Synod of Pistoia, a thesis that holds that power is given by God to the Church (or community of the faithful) whence it is given to the Pastors who are the ministers of the Church for the salvation of souls. This thesis was condemned as heretical by Pius VI (DS 2603).”

     The solution “jurisdiction through the faithful” thus turns out to be even worse than the previous solutions; I do not believe that it is genuinely maintained by the Fraternity: what is written in this section should be enough to deter anyone from following this dangerous road.

     Let us pursue our analysis of the position taken by Sodalitium regarding the consequences of the initiatives undertaken by the Society of Saint Pius X. They are incalculable, as much in the internal forum as in the external forum, i.e. as much for the spiritual life of each soul involved as for their situation within the Catholic Church.

PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES: MANY OF THE LAYPEOPLE WHO SUPPORT THE FRATERNITY WILL LIVE IN CONTINUAL UNCERTAINTY OVER THE STATE OF THEIR SOULS.

     What we have written up to this point already amply suffices to justify the thesis of this section: many of the faithful attached to the Fraternity will live in continual uncertainty about the state – and the salvation – of their souls. For as we have demonstrated, the Fraternity has already structured itself – and continues to structure itself ever more determinedly –  as an independent Church which must supply for and supplant the “official” Church (nevertheless recognised as the authentic Catholic Church). In the conscience of the faithful who are rightly proud of defending the dogma “outside the Church no salvation”, the fear of belonging to a schismatic structure can only cause continual turmoil. And in fact, certain people, scandalised at discovering the existence of these Tribunals, which if not secret are at least secretive, have withdrawn their trust from the Fraternity to follow, alas, those “authorities” which are faithful to Vatican II. The problem of conscience posed to Mgr Lefebvre’s faithful by this development of the Fraternity’s position is aggravated by the fact that the confusion derives not so much from purely abstract doctrines – perhaps beyond the powers of comprehension of the faithful but nevertheless without practical consequences – but from a standpoint which has implications for the very validity of the sacraments.

     If, for example, a simple priest of Fraternity administers Confirmation basing himself on the “powers” granted by the “Ordinances”, is the sacrament valid? The confirmee and his family may legitimately wonder. There is more. Take a monk, a nun or a subdeacon who have been “laicised” and released from their vows by a “decree” of the Fraternity’s bishop for religious or by Mgr Fellay: have they truly been released from their vows before God? Does the Lord bless their ensuing marriage or is it a sacrilegious concubinage? But the gravest and certainly the most relevant issue today concerns the marriage annulments “decreed” by the Canonical Commission of the Society of Saint Pius X...

     This, we admit, is an extremely grave pastoral problem which by no means leaves us indifferent and whose solution is difficult if not impossible. The criticisms formulated by Mgr Tissier de Mallerais against the new theological and canonical principles which gained ground after Vatican II are also ours and we share them fully. Our theological position only makes worse, if such be possible, the consequences deduced by Mgr Tissier from his analysis (cf. the whole of the first chapter of the study published in Cor unum) of the new “personalist” matrimonial doctrine condemned under Pius XII and now become the “official” doctrine under John Paul II.

     According to Mgr Tissier, who recognises John Paul II, the verdicts of the latter’s Tribunals “cannot be considered either as ipso facto null or as valid without examination”, and on a practical level the faithful are prevented from “going to novus ordo tribunals, lest this result in an invalid declaration” (Cor unum, cit. p. 44, practical rules 1 and 2). For us [remember this is Sodalitium speaking] who do not recognise the authority of John Paul II, the impossibility of resorting to his tribunals is not only a practical matter, it is also a question of principle: not only is it certain that their verdicts are null, but any recourse to these tribunals would involve de facto recognition of the authority in question, a recognition that in the light of the faith we regard as inadmissible.

     Here, we must reproduce a note in which Father Ricossa quotes the Abbé Belmont to explain his own position:

     «John Paul II, wrote the Abbé Belmont in 1990, “having failed to break with the state of schism” inaugurated by Paul VI, “remains deprived of pontifical authority.”» Deprived by whom? By the Abbé Belmont... although the whole world recognises this pontifical authority, having also recognised that of Paul VI in his lifetime. By what “authority” therefore does the Abbé Belmont “deprive” John Paul II of his pontifical authority?

     Ricossa continues with his quotation from Belmont: «Consequently, our witness to the faith requires that we avoid any act that implies recognition of his authority, e.g. referring to him in the Canon of the Mass or in liturgical prayers for the Sovereign Pontiff, benefiting from his laws or recognising them as having legal validity, having recourse to the tribunals of the Curia, etc.»

     One could not conceive of acts more formally schismatic. But Father Ricossa embraces it all eagerly: «We are in complete agreement with this position.»

     We are now going to see the consequences of this:

     We are very much aware of the grave pastoral difficulties in which our position will involve the faithful whose marriages are either known or suspected to be invalid, and who do not have the means of proving this in law. However, the solution adopted by the Society of Saint Pius X to obviate this grave inconvenience seems to us absolutely unfounded and illusory, as we will show.

     What we have just stated may seem harsh to the reader: but the following quotations will help him to accept the sad reality, for, without realising it, the authorities of the Fraternity themselves confirm our conclusion.

     For Mgr Tissier de Mallerais believes he can prove the liceity of his tribunals from the laity’s right to know with certainty whether their own marriages have been validly celebrated: the faithful, he writes, “have the right in justice to be sure of the validity of the sacrament received a second time and therefore of the validity of the declaration of nullity (...). THEREFORE (...), in this situation, faithful bishops (Dom Licinio at Campos) and our own Canonical Commission (...) possess supplied powers allowing us to judge matrimonial cases.” (Cor unum, cit. II, 4, p. 41)

     If these words have a meaning, then the verdicts of the “traditionalist tribunals” are valid BECAUSE THIS IS THE ONLY WAY for the faithful to have certainty about the nullity of their first marriage. But Mgr Tissier contradicts himself on this matter by stripping the verdicts in question of any kind of certitude, thereby making the faithful already filled with doubts fall back into the greatest anguish and perplexity over the state of their souls: “Finally”, writes the President of the Canonical Commission, “OUR VERDICTS, like all our acts of suppletory jurisdiction and like the episcopal consecrations themselves in 1988, 1991, etc., WILL ULTIMATELY NEED TO BE CONFIRMED BY THE HOLY SEE” (Cor unum, IV, 6, p. 43).

     In a footnote, Father Ricossa justly remarks that «the two cases – episcopal consecrations and tribunal verdicts – cannot be treated on the same level». This distinction seems to escape Mgr Tissier. If the consecrations were one day to be confirmed by the Holy See, the effect of this would not be to render them valid. There is no doubt that they are already are valid by virtue of the power of order that Mgr Lefebvre most certainly possessed. On the other hand, «if the Holy See were to refuse to confirm the verdicts of the Fraternity’s tribunals (and we really cannot see how it could confirm them), then any marriages contracted on the basis of these verdicts would have been totally invalid right from the start, and the putative spouses would suddenly discover that they are cohabitees».

     If in the future the Holy See does not confirm the Fraternity’s verdicts, what will happen? Every one of these verdicts will have to be considered null and void, and that from the start. Since the first marriage still remains valid, any wedding subsequently celebrated will have been null and void right from the very beginning! Now given that this hypothesis cannot be excluded since even Mgr Tissier himself envisages such a possibility, one may deduce that hitherto none of the faithful who have received a marriage annulment from the Fraternity’s tribunals can be sure – as the Fraternity itself admits – whether this annulment is valid or not. They cannot be sure, therefore, whether it is the first or the second marriage that is valid, whether the person with whom they are living is their legitimate spouse or their lover, and whether they are in good standing with God.

     There is more. Seeing that Mgr Tissier himself maintains that if jurisdiction is accorded the Fraternity’s tribunals it is because they alone give the faithful the certainty to which they are entitled, and having noted that Mgr Tissier also admits that there can be no certainty until the Holy See returns its own judgement, we must deduce that the Fraternity’s tribunals have no jurisdiction whatsoever and that their verdicts are not only doubtful but totally invalid. Therefore, those members of the faithful who have contracted a new marriage relying on the validity of these verdicts are in fact living as cohabitees and not as legitimate spouses.

PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES: WHAT IS THE DUTY OF THE FAITHFUL AND THE MEMBERS OF THE FRATERNITY? AN APPEAL BY SODALITIUM FOR UNITY IN THE TRUTH.

     The grave conclusion of the preceding chapter as well as of this whole study should present our readers, the faithful or members of the Fraternity, with a further problem of conscience: can I still support the Society of Saint Pius X if it continues to set itself up as an independent Church and if it has gone so far as to dispense to its faithful sacraments (like marriage) which may be invalid and therefore sacrilegious? Can the faithful still confidently follow guides who err in such a serious manner? Can priests, even though they disagree with their own superiors, have any part (be it only through their silence) in a doctrine and praxis that have such wide-ranging implications?

     If the members of the Mater Boni Consilii Institute left the Society of Saint Pius X in 1985, it is because they considered that it was no longer possible to support Mgr Lefebvre’s work. This decision seemed valid to us at the time and still does [remember that it is Sodalitium which is making this indictment], regardless of the issues treated of in this dossier.

     But the creation of the “Canonical Commission of Saint Charles Borromeo” in 1991 is something so serious that this problem has to be addressed in its own right, even by those who did not consider it appropriate to follow us in 1985. And indeed many priests have abandoned the Society of Saint Pius X, if for no other reason than their unwillingness to condone the de facto schism brought about by the creation of this Commission, the true embryo of a new Church. We know, it is true, that many of the faithful are unaware of the institution or the nature of these tribunals; that many priests and members of the Fraternity do not agree with their institution; that in practice, in certain districts possibly including Italy, these “tribunals” are ignored and remain inoperative. Nevertheless, the fact remains that these tribunals, and the teaching used to justify them, do not represent the personal initiative and the private opinion of a few individual members of the Fraternity, but are respectively an organ (the nature and existence of which is unknown to the public) and an official point of doctrine in the Fraternity.

     It seems right to conclude, therefore, that there is an objective obligation of conscience to withdraw support from the Society of Saint Pius X, at least for those who have kept abreast of this sorry affair (with due regard to the good faith of individuals which is known to God alone). Nonetheless, might not there be a way of avoiding a conclusion so harsh, a conclusion that seems to fail to take into account the undeniable good of said Fraternity, which has gathered together the quasi totality of Catholics remaining faithful to Tradition,...

     Why «quasi totality»? Undoubtedly because Father Ricossa counts the members of his Institute among the «Catholics remaining faithful to Tradition», even though they have separated from «said Fraternity».

     In any case, it is clear that, in his eyes, the Catholics of the Counter-Reformation are not included.

     … giving them a presence everywhere throughout the world? So must we really abandon the Fraternity to its destiny?

     It seems to me that, in order to be able to continue to support the Society of Saint Pius X on account of the good that it can still do in the future, it is necessary to obtain from its leaders a fundamental review of its doctrinal position. In other words, the Society of Saint Pius X must first re-examine and review its position regarding supplied jurisdiction and – after a serious examination of the question – agree to suppress its Canonical Commission of Saint Charles Borromeo, or at least to change it from an ecclesiastical tribunal into a simple consultative body on moral and canonical questions. It must also to revise the “Ordinances” of 1980 (and of 1997). But it would be illusory to correct the erroneous effects without at the same time re-examining the cause of these effects. The long historical introduction that we presented before we went on to examine the teachings disseminated throughout the Society of Saint Pius X since 1991, explained how the Fraternity’s position on the problem of jurisdiction has evolved and was intended to help the reader understand how the deviations currently encountered in said Fraternity have their roots in the position taken by Mgr Lefebvre from at least 1979 regarding the “problem of authority” (or “of the Pope”). It is only by taking a clear and theologically correct position correct on the authority of the Council, Paul VI and John Paul II, that we will be able to address the particular issues confronting faithful Catholics in the current crisis.

     Now at last we are getting there... Forty years after the opening of the Second Vatican Council, it is considered time to adopt “a clear and theologically correct position” on its authority! But it is never too late to set the record straight... Let us see what this amounts to.

     Mgr Lefebvre, it is true, had always rejected the sedevacantist solution, and of course we cannot defend the fact that in this rejection was also included a rejection of the thesis of Cassiciacum developed by Father Guérard des Lauriers OP, that most prestigious theologian who took up the defence of Catholic Tradition right from the beginning.

     For Father Ricossa the phrase «right from the beginning» means from 1969, as we saw earlier (p. 11), in other words four years after the Council ended! As for the epithet «prestigious», this is a matter of personal appreciation; we leave the responsibility for this judgement to Father Ricossa, not without recalling that some time ago he criticised us for «the “personality cult” that pervades every page written by the Abbé’s disciples» (Sodalitium, May 1998, quoted in the English CRC n^o 309, May 1998, p. 32). So we are quits!

     The marginalisation, then the “diabolisation”, and finally the obliteration of the very memory of Father Guérard des Lauriers, the author of the “SHORT CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE NOVUS ORDO MISSÆ” attributed to its signatories, Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci, deprived Mgr Lefebvre and his Fraternity of a sure authoritative guide for the doctrinal and theological choices that were inevitably going to have to be made.

     Alas, the position of the Father Guérard was rejected practically without examination. It was equated with the total sedevacantism from which Father Guérard, on the contrary, has always distinguished himself.

     Attention! We are now at a meeting of the ways. The elder brothers can still hear the sincere compliments addressed by our Father to Father Guérard des Lauriers on that famous evening of 21 July 1969 while he was serving soup to him in our refectory after having said the Benedicamus Domino! that is permission to speak. And there was no shortage of conversation!

     «Ah! Reverend Father, we have read your study on the New Mass. It is not signed, but we recognised your style. It is certainly remarkable... However, it lacks a conclusion.

     – It speaks for itself, retorted the Dominican, the New Mass is invalid.

     – But, Reverend Father, the Pope cannot promulgate an invalid Mass!

     – There isn’t a Pope any longer!

     – How do you arrive at such a conclusion?

     – Without inference, replied Father Guérard, without inference!

     He meant that it was self-evident: the New Mass was invalid, the hierarchy had vanished. No more Pope! No more bishops! «Without inference!» without the need to prove it by reasoning. It is the same kind of “self-evident truth” which inspires Father Ricossa – as we have observed on several occasions – accompanied by a total contempt for the judgement of the rest of the Church spread throughout the world.

     Some of the reasons for which the Fraternity and Mgr Lefebvre rejected sedevacantism, exactly match our own position: for example the absence of proof concerning the formal heresy of John Paul II...

     Really? Then, what is the justification for Father Ricossa declaring John Paul II deprived of papal authority? The Abbé de Nantes has provided superabundant «proof» of the heresy of John Paul II in his Liber accusationis. What is lacking is not proof, it is the verdict of the court judging the case.

… the impracticability of the classical arguments concerning both the hypothesis of an heretical Pope and the Bull of Paul IV to prove that the Holy See is vacant,…

     Using the term “impracticability”, Father Ricossa casually rules on a question – as though it spoke for itself – which had already formed the entire object of the debate between the Abbé de Nantes and Father Guérard on 21 July 1969.

     Even if it were admitted that the Pope had fallen from office due to the fact that he had promulgated a heretical and invalid Mass, it would still be necessary for the whole Church to acknowledge and recognise this: «If you are alone in proclaiming this, it does not count!» our Father said to Father Guérard des Lauriers.

     That evening, Bellarmine’s thesis on the case of an heretical Pope was discussed as well as the thesis of Cajetan. Taking his stand on the latter, our Father firmly concluded: «A judgement by the Church is needed if Pope Paul VI is to be deposed.» It was at this point that the Abbé Coache burst into laughter: «Are you still harping on about that! To expect the official Church to pass a judgement deposing the Pope is simply ridiculous. It could never happen!»

     Here already we see decreed as «impracticable the classical arguments concerning the hypothesis of an heretical Pope».

     Ever since then, the Abbé de Nantes has been the only one to formulate this «hypothesis», initially as a «theoretical possibility», then as a «practical possibility», all the while following «classical authors» to use his own expressions (cf. French CRC n^o 69, June 1973, p. 7). Although he does not say so, it is clearly him that Father Ricossa is attacking here, something on which he agrees with Mgr Lefebvre.

     … the necessity of having continuity in the Church, in the hierarchy and the conclave voters (cardinals), the rejection of “conclaves” convened by private individuals...

     For Father Ricossa, the «continuity of the Church» passes through the Society of Saint Pius X «which gathers together the quasi totality of Catholics remaining faithful to Tradition». Even supposing this were so, quid «of the hierarchy and the conclave voters»?

     The question is not merely academic. It is in fact eminently practical: quid of the conclave which elected Pope Albino Luciani? Does Father Ricossa consider that John Paul I was himself «deprived of papal authority» during the thirty-three days of his reign? Yes or no? If no, the whole “Cassiciacum Thesis” breaks down. If yes, for what reason? What wrong did he commit? «No one disputes that everything was holy during those thirty-three days; an edifying and consoling period, so pleasant to meditate on today», wrote the Abbé de Nantes, confessing that he himself was surprised:

     «And in the first place because we had never imagined that there could still exist among the Princes of the Church men of such quality, of such holiness. I wrote in my “Funeral oration for Paul VI” (English CRC n^o 101, August 1978), and I regret it, that I held all the cardinals of this Conclave responsible, by their active complicity or cowardice, for the degradation of the Church under the reign of Paul VI, the most destructive reign, the most auto-destructive reign of our whole history. How could they have accepted everything, how could they have said nothing?

     «The elevation of Cardinal Luciani to the pontificate with a very large majority (but not unanimity) as we know, showed that he and others (many others) had taken as their ultimate rule an extreme filial obedience, pushing into the background everything else which they considered to lie outside their competence. So there was this silent majority who perhaps struggled in secret, who suffered, prayed, and practised patience, but who one day would elect from among themselves the best and the most saintly Pontiff. Today the lesson I draw from this is firstly that we can never have too much confidence in Holy Church, and secondly that we must generously reconcile ourselves with all those who loved H.H. John Paul I and who rejoiced in his accession.» That was written twenty-two years ago (English CRC n^o 103, October 1978)!

     Afterwards we somewhat forgot the lesson, as everything had recommenced as before, with John Paul II. But now the Third Secret of Fatima has again turned our eyes and our hearts towards «a Bishop dressed in White», seen on 13 July 1917 by the three children of Fatima who had «the impression that it was the Holy Father». It was Albino Luciani, the admirable Shepherd, passing «in an immense light which is God».

     On the other hand, the Cassiciacum Thesis shares the essential positions of sedevacantism: John Paul II cannot enjoy pontifical authority; he is not divinely assisted; one cannot be in communion with him (or with the others in the Canon of the Mass); the problem of obedience and of the infallibility of the Pope does not occur in his case (truths of faith both vigorously defended in the Thesis and generally also by sedevacantism, in contrast to the Fraternity). If we have embraced the Thesis, it is not because it is more convenient or because it might be a point of union for all anti-modernists; it is simply because it is true.

     However, it appears to us that this thesis has often been regarded as a factor of division (we stand accused of “sedevacantism” by the followers of Mgr Lefebvre and of “lefebvrism” by the “sedevacantists”!) whereas on the contrary, as certain rare observers have remarked, it could become a powerful factor of unity between us, putting an end to the interminable and dangerous divisions which benefit only our enemies and weaken our forces by scandalising the faithful.

     A footnote, the last one (n^o 61), names the «rare observers» in question: «two sedevacantists who have taken up the Cassiciacum Thesis, Mgr McKenna and Father Barbara». “Sedevacantists” regard the Pope as deposed simply on account of his heresy.

     The “Cassiciacum Thesis” regards the current Pope as occupying the Holy See materialiter, but not formaliter. To both types of sedevacantist our Father repeats: «Whatever personal faults, crimes or abuses, whatever schismatic acts and heretical teachings those in authority may be guilty of in our eyes, none of us is competent of his own initiative and by his own personal decision to declare any member of the hierarchy deprived of his office and stripped of his powers.

     «Even were we to see far worse – and what we see already is scarcely tolerable –, we should still remain in a state of submission to the Pastors of the Church, but in rebellion against their rebellion, in opposition to their schism and heresy. We must always remember that the risen Jesus Christ is the sovereign Lord and Master of His Church and that He Himself knows what is to be done in such cases, without us being so audacious as to claim to substitute ourselves for His justice and His judgement.

     «What makes the conduct of the integrist pastors so blameworthy is that they have assumed jurisdiction over the people, according to their whim, as if Christ had charged them to do so.» (English CRC n^o 143, February 1982, p. 14)

     But Ricossa is unconcerned and continues his propaganda:

     We therefore invite the best qualified and best intentioned people from the two sides (sedevacantists and disciples of Mgr Lefebvre) to seriously consider the so-called Cassiciacum Thesis.

     According to him, «it is the unique, the only position – uncompromising but balanced – to take account of both the incredible situation in which we live and at the dogmas of the faith (infallibility, primacy, indefectibility, apostolicity, etc.) in which we must believe if we are to remain Catholic.

     Father Ricossa does not actually say this, but throughout his study he reveals that he holds his own judgement to be infallible, and it alone. We must therefore quote the Abbé de Nantes again: in this ultimate combat undertaken by Satan against the Mother of God, in Rome itself, on 11 October 1962, Her feast day, the Abbé de Nantes alone has showed himself ROMAN, as Father Berto told him himself three weeks before he died: «Monsieur l’abbé, you are Roman! I can’t get over the fact that you didn’t do your studies in Rome. When I read your writings – and you know with what attention I have been reading them for the last ten years – I have the feeling that you sucked the milk of holy doctrine on the knees of Alma Mater, Ecclesia Sancta Romana!» Father Barbara, who was present at this scene, protested that he himself was also “Roman”: «No! no! Monsieur de Nantes is Roman in an exceptional way quite unlike ourselves. We are disciples of Cardinal Billot, Father Floch and those admirable men who made us what we are, indefectibly attached to the Roman See.»

     In the French CRC n^o 69, The Pope on trial? of June 1973, our Father establishes the principle and the theological and canonical basis of the accusation brought by him against Paul VI and consigned to a book which was handed to the Holy See on the previous 10 April by sixty delegates of the Catholic Counter-Reformation. One might think this twenty-eight year old text had been specially written for today!

     «The Church in her unanimous belief is infallible», he affirms. Not Ricossa, McKenna, Pivert or Tissier, but the Church, the Church alone: «By virtue of her dignity as Spouse of Christ, the Church participates in His infallible knowledge of the Truth.»

     And what is “the Church”? The Society of Saint Pius X? The Istituto Mater Boni Consilii? Those who hold such beliefs repeat the error of the Donatists who reduced the Catholic Church to their local African synods in the times of Saint Augustine: «What all the faithful unanimously believe to be divine revelation is infallibly true. Why? Because if the whole Church, even for a single instance in her history, were to fall into error in her entirety, be it only on a single point of dogma or morality, the gates of Hell would have prevailed against the promises of Christ.

     «For example, the Church has always, in her totality, believed in the perpetual Virginity of Mary. This is therefore an infallible truth of Revelation. Today the Dutch contest it [we are in 1973; since then, the Dutch heresy has grown and been embellished; cf. Resurrection n^o 2, February 2001, p. 13 ] on the pretext that it has never been precisely defined by the Magisterium and imposed as a dogma for all to believe. Bad reasoning! There is no need to define what has always been taught and believed by all, because this common and ordinary faith can be nothing other than the infallible truth of Revelation.»

     It is not by chance that the Blessed Virgin, Our Lady, is here invoked as the guarantor of our Catholic faith. In this way we are informed that we must turn towards Her, the Immaculate. There is no infallibility of Pope or Council except in this dependence, as in the first days of the Church when Mary was enthroned like a Queen among the Apostles (Ac 1.14). So true is it that «You alone, O Mother! will vanquish heresies throughout the world.»      (to be continued)

Brother Bruno Bonnet-Eymard