Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre - Volume Three

Louis Salleron's article helps in several ways to put the case of Mgr. Lefebvre in its correct perspective. Pope John Paul II's letter on the priesthood provides an excellent and even inspiring evocation of the true nature of the Catholic priesthood. Archbishop Lefebvre might well be the only French bishop who would give it unqualified acceptance and support, and insist that all the priests subject to him did likewise. The Pope's ideal of the priesthood is precisely the ideal proposed to the seminarians at Ec6ne. It was noted and documented in Apologia I that the Holy See's Basic Norms for Priestly Training are observed more faithfully at Ecône than almost any other seminary in the West (see pages 69-70). Despite this, Mgr. Lefebvre is the only French bishop who is suspended a divinis. The other French bishops are all in good standing with the Holy See, even though, as a body, they subscribe to the revolutionary doctrine of the priesthood which is poisoning "The Church of France." It must also be noted that the catechetical instruction which they impose upon Catholic children in France is among the worst in the entire world.

Professor Salleron's article also illustrates the extent to which the Catholic ethos of the French Church has disappeared almost entirely outside traditionalist groups. Once this ethos is lost it is rarely regained. And those who have repudiated Tradition flaunt their revolutionary new religion before the Pope himself with what Professor Salleron terms aptly "puerile insolence." It must be one of the great ironies of Catholic history that in the post-conciliar era the epithet "rebel bishop" is retained for Mgr. Lefebvre alone. No doubt the English hierarchy under Henry VIII would have used the same epithet for St. John Fisher.

1. Novo incipiente nostro, 8 April 1979. Frequently referred to as the “Holy Thursday Letter to Priests." (Full text available in Flannery, Vol. II.)

Vatican Condemns the Book Human Sexuality
The Remnant – 17 August 1979

The Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in a letter to the U.S. bishops, has declared that the notorious book, Human Sexuality, contains fundamental errors that cannot be reconciled with traditional Catholic teaching.

The book was edited by the Rev. Anthony Kosnik and commissioned by the Catholic Theological Society of America. It was published in the U. S. in 1977.

In a letter to Archbishop Quinn, President of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Franjo Cardinal Seper, head of the Vatican office responsible for defending the Faith, also criticized the prestigious Catholic Theological Society that commissioned the book published by the Paulist Press.
The book in question is said to have been sold in the tens of thousands of copies. Written by five Catholic theologians, it purports to offer "guidelines" for sexual morality differing from the Church's familiar "thou-shalt-not" approach. It recommends that faithful Catholics, in judging what constitutes appropriate sexual behavior, should try to determine whether their acts and attitudes are "self-liberating, other-enriching, honest, faithful (emphasizing stable relationships), socially responsible, life- serving and joyous."

Cardinal Seper's letter criticizes these "purely subjective criteria…that yield no manageable or helpful rules for serious conscience-formation in matters of sexuality." Similarly, the Vatican document takes issue with the book's tendency to subject "theological and scientific arguments…to criteria derived from one's present experience of what is human or less than human. This gives rise to a relativism in human conduct which recognizes no absolute values. Given these criteria, it is small wonder that this book pays such scant attention to the doctrine of the Magisterium, whose clear teaching and helpful norms of morality it often openly contradicts."


Cardinal Seper rightly stressed the fact that this degrading book was produced by a "distinguished society of Catholic theologians." There is little doubt that these theologians, distinguished principally by their un-catholicity, represent mainstream thinking on moral theology within the Catholic establishment in the United States today. This thinking has been described aptly by Msgr. John McCarthy as “pornology."¹ While it is true that the book was criticized by the American Bishops' Committee on Doctrine in November 1977, it cannot be denied that the Theological Society could not have become dominated by Liberals or have published this book without at least the passive acquiescence of the hierarchy. It is certainly arguable that no criticism would have come from the bishops had it not been for widespread public protests by lay groups and journals such as The Wanderer.



Catechesi tradendæ
Apostolic Exhortation of Pope John Paul II
16 October 1979

One of the greatest causes of concern among the faithful since the Second Vatican Council has been the deterioration in the standard of religious education (catechesis) given to Catholic children in schools and catechism classes. In the years immediately following the Council parents began to notice that the content of what their children were taught was being continually diluted. Little emphasis, if any emphasis at all, was placed upon memorizing fundamentals of the Faith, such as the Seven Sacraments or the Ten Commandments. Considerable stress was laid upon the children's own experience of life. A great deal of time was devoted to such activities as drawing a map of the route the child took to school, or making lists of things he liked or did not like. Parents who voiced their anxieties were told that this was meaningful, in accordance with modern educational methods, or in the "spirit of Vatican II" – possibly a combination of all three.

As the years passed what purported to be Catholic catechesis often degenerated to the lowest common denominator Christianity, or even humanism. This consisted principally of loving one's neighbor, being kind to animals, and helping the "third world." A stage was reached when children not only failed to receive systematic instruction in the truths of their Faith, but were actually being taught error.

Many orthodox priests and teachers joined parents in protesting at the travesty of the Faith which was being foisted upon Catholic children. The tactic employed against them most frequently was the argument from authority. Diocesan bishops had appointed catechetical directors to ensure that catechetical instruction within their dioceses was effectively "renewed." These men were "experts," and those who had the temerity to criticize them must, ipso facto, be doing so from either ignorance or malice. These catechetical II "experts" had, in most cases, spent time in catechetical institutes where they had been indoctrinated in Modernism. They emerged as men with a mission, the mission of teaching a new religion under the guise of new teaching methods.



England was fortunate in having one very orthodox catechetical director who made a courageous public defense of the right of Catholic children to be taught the Catholic Faith in Catholic schools. The priest in question is Canon George Telford who was Catechetical Director of the Archdiocese of Southwark and Vice-chairman of the Department of Catechetics for the entire country. He eventually resigned from both positions when he found that, within the catechetical establishment, he was waging an almost single-handed fight for orthodoxy, and was receiving no support whatsoever from the bishops as a body, although some of them gave him their support privately. Canon Telford concluded that it was pointless continuing what was evidently a hopeless struggle. He wrote a very forceful letter which he sent to every member of the hierarchy. This letter was published in the April 1977, issue of Christian Order, and it summarized exactly the type of religious instruction which was being imparted at that time in most Western countries:

Catechesi tradendæ

In October 1979, the second year of his pontificate, Pope John Paul II certainly gave considerable cause for hope to all those who had been involved in the fight for orthodox catechesis. In his Apostolic Exhortation, Catechesi tradendæ, he appeared to be echoing the anxiety and indignation which so many of the faithful had been expressing in so many countries. Their complaints had not simply been rejected, but often ridiculed. But now the Supreme Pontiff himself made it clear that this anxiety and indignation had been amply justified.

The Holy Father claimed that many good and successful new catechetical books had been produced. Then he continued:
The Pope also stated that it is quite useless "to campaign for the abandonment of a serious and orderly study of the message of Christ in the name of a method concentrating on life experience." He advocated memorization and insisted that children should be taught the Faith "not in mutilated, falsified or diminished form, but whole and entire, in all its rigor and vigor…Thus, no true catechist can lawfully, on his own initiative, make a selection of what he considers important in the Deposit of Faith as opposed to what he considers unimportant, so as to teach one and reject the other.” The Pope condemned teachers who trouble the minds of children with" outlandish theories, useless questions, and unproductive discussions"- terms which are very reminiscent of Canon Telford's strictures.

Pope Paul VI had also been very concerned at the extent to which unorthodox catechesis had become apparent early in his pontificate. He responded to this with two key documents. The first was his Credo of the People of God (30 June 1968), which reaffirmed the principal doctrines of our Faith using, in many instances, the terminology of the Council of Trent. The second was the General Catechetical Directory (11 April 1971), which listed the basic doctrines which every Catholic child was entitled to know.⁴


1. Living Tradition, January, 1987, p. 7.

2. The condemnation of the book Human Sexuality by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is dated 13 July 1979. The full text is available in Flannery, Vol. II.

3. In August 1974 a 96-page dossier I had written concerning the catechetical director of the Archdiocese of Liverpool was published by Approaches. It consisted principally of a series of statements of fact. It was sent to the Archbishop of Liverpool and to every head teacher and parish priest in his diocese. The Archbishop's reaction was to express his total confidence in the catechetical director despite the fact that he was unable to refute a single statement in the Dossier which was entitled appropriately, The Fort Betrayed. This was a reference to the remark made by St. John Fisher concerning the apostate hierarchy of England during the reign of Henry VIII: "The fort is betrayed even of them that should have defended it."

4. These two documents, together with Catechesi tradendæ, are available in Flannery, Vol. II.

IN his 21 October lecture, cited on page 27, Dr. May made some very perceptive comments concerning Pope John Paul II. The beginning of his pontificate has given traditional Catholics grounds for considerable optimism, and this explains why 1979 could be termed legitimately a year of hope. But in his lecture Dr. May sounded a note of caution, a warning which proved to be only too prophetic. Dr. May warned that words must be matched by deeds, and before the end of the year the condemnation of Hans Kung and news of the forthcoming "Dutch Synod" in Rome gave the impression that this was precisely what was about to happen. But throughout the West entire national hierarchies ignored the Pope, and failed to implement his directives. In his turn, the Pope was unwilling to risk a confrontation with any national hierarchy, perhaps through a fear of provoking a formal schism. This has meant that his instructions in such matters as religious education or the liturgy have had little if any impact at the parish level. Dr. May's comments concerning Pope John Paul II are as follows:

We hear a great deal about the ecumenical movement. Today I am going to speak to you about the ecumenical heresy. The theme of this forum is "Fidelity to the Catholic Tradition." Catholic tradition has been challenged in many ways since the Second Vatican Council, but no challenge has been more blatant, more widespread, and more dangerous than that of those who wish the Church to deny her very nature in the interests of a spurious ecumenism. Before examining false ecumenism, the ecumenical heresy, we must be clear about true Catholic ecumenism. Dietrich von Hildebrand tells us in The Devastated Vineyard that: "The attitude which goes with true ecumenism involves sympathetically emphasizing the elements of truth in other religions while clearly rejecting the errors they contain." "While clearly rejecting the errors they contain"- I would like you to keep this phrase in mind. It is fundamental to the thesis I shall put before you and I shall be returning to it again.

And what is the aim of ecumenical dialogue pursued in the spirit proposed by von Hildebrand? The only acceptable aim for a Catholic ecumenist is that proposed by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos; that is, to bring our separated brethren to realize that: "The unity of Christians cannot be otherwise obtained than by securing the return of the separated to the one true Church of Christ from which they unhappily withdrew. To the one true Church of Christ, we say, that stands forth before all and that, by the will of its Founder, will remain forever the same as when He Himself established it for the salvation of all mankind.”

The late Cardinal Heenan warned: "It is dishonest to dissemble…The ultimate aim of ecumenism is the reunion of all Christians under the Vicar of Christ."

Having established the nature and purpose of true Catholic ecumenism we shall proceed at once to examine the ecumenical heresy not in theory but in practice. On Friday, 14 September this year, a letter from Father Henry Haacke appeared in The Catholic Telegraph. I am surprised that The Catholic Telegraph printed his letter. You will be surprised when I read it to you. Here it is:

My first reaction to this letter is to say "God bless you, Father Haacke.” I have never met Father Haacke, I have never correspond with Father Haacke, I had never heard of Father Haacke, until a reader of The Remnant sent me a copy of his letter. This letter reveals that despite the devastation in the vineyard of the Lord which has followed the Second Vatican Council, Father Haacke has retained the sense of what it means to be a Catholic. He is a priest who has retained the ability to think with the Church, sentire cum Ecclesia. He has a ground grasp of theology and a profound love of the Church. He also has courage. I do not know if Father Haacke ever entertained any hope of advancement in the Church. I do not know if he hoped that one day he might be Monsignor Haacke, and need to purchase a cassock with red button-holes. If he has put any money aside for this purpose he need not hesitate about withdrawing it, because there is certainly no hope whatsoever of any advancement in the Conciliar Church, the American Church, the Ecumenical Church, for a priest who is still imbued with the Catholic ethos. Father Haacke has committed the sin against ecumenism for which there is no forgiveness – he has spoken the truth. He is a true disciple of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who came into the world to bear witness to the truth.

The first reaction of an ecumenical heretic to Father Haacke’s letter would be to say that it is uncharitable, but the correct reaction to his letter is to ask whether what it states is true. If it is true it cannot be uncharitable. There can be no conflict between veritas, truth, and caritas, charity.

If Father Haacke’s criticisms are justified then it is Archbishop Whealon of Hartford, Connecticut, who is being uncharitable – for what is contrary to Christian truth is clearly contrary to Christian charity. If an act is contrary to Christian truth and charity it is an anti-Christian act. I submit to you that Archbishop Whealon has committed an anti-Christian act by allowing his cathedral to be used for the so-called consecration of a so-called bishop – to be used, as Father Haacke expressed it, for the “simulation” of the most sacred rites of our Holy Faith. Archbishop Whealon is acting contrary to the will of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

When He offered Himself as a perfect Sacrifice upon the Cross, Our Lord atoned for the sins of all men and won sufficient grace to save all men – which does not mean that all men will be saved, as we have an obligation to cooperate with divine grace in order to achieve our salvation. Our Lord willed, I repeat, Our Lord willed that His Church should be the ordinary means by which divine grace is mediated to men. The Catholic Church is His Mystical Body, an extension of the Incarnation throughout the nations and throughout the centuries. Our Lord willed that divine grace should ordinarily be mediated to men through His Church by means of the Seven Sacraments which He instituted. God is not bound by His Sacraments. Where necessary He will bestow grace directly upon individual men – but this is an extraordinary means of salvation. The ordinary means of salvation is His Mystical Body, which alone has a mandate to preach the Gospel, offer public worship, and administer the Sacraments. The power He bestowed upon His Church is indeed awe-inspiring, terrifying.

“He who hears you hears Me, and he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him Who sent Me” (Luke 10:16).

Our Lord could scarcely have been more specific – to reject the authority of the Church which He founded is to reject Father, Son and Holy Ghost. This is not a personal opinion which I am expressing. I am quoting the words of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Our Lord founded one Church and one Church only, which was to be the ordinary means of salvation for mankind and outside which there is no salvation. Writing in 1968, Bishop B.C. Butler, subsequently an ardent ecumenist, still had sufficient sense of being a Catholic to write:
Those who accept what I have said so far, that the Catholic Church is indeed the one true Church founded by Our Lord, have certain duties incumbent upon them. They have the duty of making a response which von Hildebrand describes as "purely positive and morally called for." He explains: "One cannot find the truth and grasp it clearly as such, without seeing through errors. Knowledge of truth is inseparably linked with the knowledge of error, with the unmasking of error. In other words, possession of truth is a privilege, it is a sacred trust which involves duties and these duties are not fulfilled simply by refraining from a formal denial of the truth, these duties demand that we do not behave in practice as if truth does not exist, as if there is no distinction between truth and error. This duty is demanded not simply by truth but by charity. Archbishop Lefebvre has pointed out frequently that those imbued with true charity towards our separated brethren will be concerned to bring them from the error of heresy to the truth of Catholicism.

Let us now examine the Episcopalian Church in the light of what I have established. The first point to make is that it is not a Church at all, there is only one Church and, as Bishop Butler stated with admirable clarity, outside the Church there are only individual human beings. The so-called Episcopalian Church is, therefore, no more than a sect, a group of individuals who have set themselves up in opposition to the Church of Christ, in opposition to the will of Christ. They have taken it upon themselves to preach their own gospel in opposition to the Gospel of Christ and to offer public worship in opposition to the Church of Christ. Unlike the Orthodox churches, Episcopalians do not have valid orders. They have no priesthood, no bishops, and no valid Eucharist – valid, that is, in the sense understood by the Catholic Church. The Bull Apostolicæ Curæ is as applicable today as it has been since Pope Leo XIII promulgated it in 1896:
In the light of all this, what should our reaction be to Archbishop Whealon's decision to loan his cathedral to the Episcopalians? I submit that unless it is a reaction of horror, scandal, and outrage, then we are in danger of losing the sense of what being a Catholic means. Von Hildebrand has warned us that such is the devastation in the vineyard of the Lord that we are losing our capacity to be scandalized:

We have to realize that our time is like the time of Arianism, and so we have to be extremely careful lest we be poisoned ourselves without noticing it! We must not underestimate the power of those ideas which fill the intellectual atmosphere of the time, nor the danger of being infected by them when we are daily breathing this atmosphere. Nor should we underestimate the danger of getting used to be evils of our times, and then becoming insensitive to them.

Unless we have become insensitive to the truth, we can criticize Father Haacke on only one count; he has put the case against Archbishop Whealon far too mildly. What the Archbishop’s conduct amounts to in practice is a denial of the true nature of the Catholic Church. I asked you to keep in mind a definition of true ecumenism made by von Hildebrand, which involved emphasizing the elements of the truth possessed by other religions while clearly rejecting the errors they contain. Archbishop Whealon is not simply failing to reject the errors of Episcopalianism, he is not simply remaining silent concerning them, he is, in practice, endorsing them. The ceremony for which he has loaned his cathedral amounts in practice to a public denial that Our Lord Jesus Christ has founded one true Church to which alone He has given a mandate to teach, to sanctify, and to offer public worship. Archbishop Whealon is not to be commended for an act of Christian charity – he is to be condemned for a denial of Christian truth. His action is an anti-Christian action. It constitutes his public acceptance of the existence of some amorphous entity called the Christian Church of which Catholicism and Episcopalianism are both branches. Episcopalians cannot possibly be blamed for taking this act as acceptance that they constitute a church, or at least constitute part of the Catholic Church. It would be an outrage to lend them a Catholic church for any form of service – but to lend it to them for what Father Haacke correctly describes as the simulation of the most sacred rites of our church is an act of sacrilege. The man who was to be consecrated is not even a priest, he is a layman, and after the ceremonies he will have remained a layman. Nothing will have happened. But, no doubt, Archbishop Whealon will have been among the first to come forward with an effusive ecumenical smile, to offer him a prolonged ecumenical handshake, and to congratulate him upon being made a bishop. Note well, I am not condemning the Episcopalians concerned. Charity demands that, without evidence to the contrary, we must presume that they are acting in good faith and are saved from sin by invincible ignorance. But no such excuse can be used to defend Archbishop Whealon who, presumably, was taught the true faith in the days before Vatican II and, as a bishop, has a duty to die for the faith if necessary.

It is fashionable today to praise the Church of the first four centuries, to extol primitive practice. How would the Church of the first four centuries have regarded Archbishop Whealon? Anyone who is remotely acquainted with Church history can give one answer and one answer only. Archbishop Whealon would have been regarded as an apostate; he would have been anathematized, and every true Catholic bishop would have broken off communion with him.

I believe that the Church of the first four centuries was right. I believe that Archbishop Whealon is at least a de facto apostate. It seems a harsh thing to say. It may make me appear harsh and intolerant – but nonetheless it is the truth. Cardinal Newman has a magnificent sermon upon this very point, "Tolerance of Religious Error." He castigates those whose concern is not to uphold truth but to avoid the appearance being intolerant. Once again I must repeat, those who possess the truth, those who love the truth, cannot tolerate error. In another fine sermon, "Many Called, Few Chosen," Newman warns that: "Those who serve God faithfully must ever look to be accounted, in their generation, singular, intemperate, and extreme."² In his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, he characterized the Church of the first four centuries by its intolerance towards error, its exclusiveness, its ceaseless war with all other bodies called Christian, its naming them as heretics, warning them of coming woe, and calling them to forsake their errors and enter the one fold of Jesus Christ.

Furthermore, I submit that Archbishop Whealon's conduct would have been considered incompatible with Catholicism not only by the Church of the first four centuries – it would have resulted in his immediate excommunication by every Roman Pontiff up to and including Pope John XXIII. I accept that what I am saying will make me appear singular, intemperate and extreme in the ecumenical climate of the Conciliar Church, but the view-point I am putting forward would have been accepted by 99% of Catholics up to Vatican II. Read the encyclical Mortalium Animos of Pope Pius XI, read the relevant encyclicals of Pope Pius XII. If Archbishop Whealon is right, then the Church has been wrong for 2,000 years.

I am sure that no one here today imagines that Archbishop Whealon represents an isolated act of infidelity to the teaching of Our Lord. He is simply reflecting the prevailing climate of the ecumenical heresy. In England we have shared churches – can you believe it? We have shared churches and shared tabernacles, and public campaigns of joint evangelization endorsed by our bishops. Can you imagine the reaction of St. Athanasius or any other Father of the Church to a proposal to share churches or engage in campaigns of joint evangelization with the Arians or any other heretical or schismatic sect? To ask this question is to answer it. Bishop Walter F. Sullivan of the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, has established at least one joint parish. Can you believe that? It is called the Anglican-Roman Catholic Church of Tidewater. A Catholic priest and an Episcopalian minister are acting as joint pastors. This is not simply an outrage, it is lunacy. There is no Anglican-Roman Catholic Church. There is only one Church, the one, holy, Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ, and I submit that not only is the Anglican-Roman Catholic Church of Tidewater not a part of that Church but that Bishop Sullivan of Richmond can no longer be considered a member of it.

And what of the campaigns of joint evangelization I have mentioned as taking place in England? Evangelization means preaching the Gospel. Well, what gospel is being preached in these campaigns? It is certainly not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Our Lord did not command His Apostles to cooperate with heretics in preaching an amorphous lowest common denominator message of philanthropy and good will to all, or to let those evangelized in this way make up their own minds whether to join His Church or one of the heretical sects with which it was cooperating. The idea is outrageous, it is lunacy, it is diabolic.

Worst of all, the Vatican now allows Protestants to receive Holy Communion in Catholic churches on certain occasions. Admittedly, strict conditions are imposed in theory, but in practice bishops have been given the discretion to ignore these conditions with impunity .The get-out clause, published in a letter from Cardinal Willebrands' Unity Secretariat in 1973, states:
This gives the bishops carte blanche to allow Protestants to receive the Catholic Sacrament on any occasion. Thus Father John Dietzen, in his question and answer column in The Catholic Telegraph on October 6, 1978, included the following in his reply to a questioner who was perturbed at the fact that Methodists has received Holy Communion at a wedding celebrated in a Catholic Church:
Thus speaks the Conciliar Church.

Great scandal was caused in 1967 when the late Pope Paul VI authorized Barbara Olson, an American Presbyterian, to receive Holy Communion at her marriage to a Catholic. A lengthy correspondence followed in the London Tablet, with a very fine English theologian, Father Edward Carey, firmly maintaining that such an act could not be justified under any circumstances whatsoever, as it was contrary to the nature of the Eucharist. Despite the fact that the Vatican has since legalized the practice, Father Carey still upholds his original position – and he is right. Catholics rightly show great devotion to the Eucharist as the Body and Blood of Our Lord, but have paid less attention to the ultimate signification of the act of Holy Communion – and this signification is the unity of the Mystical Body. St. Augustine pointed out that we become what we receive; therefore it can never be legitimate to give Holy Communion to anyone outside the unity of the Mystical Body.

This is, as Father Carey has maintained so courageously, contrary to the nature of the Eucharist. Remember, every non-Catholic has the option of receiving the Catholic Sacrament by becoming a Catholic. There is no injustice in refusing the Catholic Sacrament to those who refuse to enter into the unity of the Mystical Body.

There is no doubt whatsoever that Vatican authorization permitting Protestants to receive Holy Communion in Catholic churches is the greatest scandal of the Conciliar Church – and that is really saying something! It is now widespread. The Sydney Morning Herald of 3 May 1979, gave a whole catalogue of examples in a report of a tour of the South Pacific by Dr. Coggan, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury .It cites an occasion when, in the presence of a Catholic bishop, he gave Holy Communion to a combined congregation of Catholics and Anglicans, and also names areas in which, where the clergy of both communions are not regularly present, Catholic priests administer Communion to Anglicans and vice-versa. The French bishops have issued an open invitation to Anglicans visiting France to receive Communion in Catholic churches. I have had this confirmed by an official Anglican source.

Rather than list numerous cases of Catholic Holy Communion being given to Protestants, I will refer to just one more, one that should certainly shock anyone still capable of being shocked. The Rev. Lord George McLeod is a dignitary of the Church of Scotland, a Presbyterian body. A letter from him was published in Faith magazine in November 1976. It includes the following:

On the Friday in the Cathedral we gathered together for Holy Communion. A Protestant from Northern Ireland read from St. John's Gospel: Tom Smail, a Presbyterian, preached a mighty word. The Cardinal broke the bread and wine. In that service there was prophecy, tongues and interpretation, open and free prayer, singing in and with the Spirit, and we concluded by singing and dancing up and down the aisles – professors, priests, pastors and the Cardinal, hands joined and hearts united… The Cardinal was Cardinal Suenens.

There is much talk of the need for traditionalists to maintain a moderate approach. Who can be moderate in the face of such an outrage? The great danger at present is not that traditionalists will become immoderate, but they will succumb to the temptation against which I have already cited von Hildebrand's warning – that we can become so used to the evils of the day that we grow insensitive. I have always maintained that the entry of pentecostalism into the Catholic Church is the work of the devil. Can we describe the antics of Cardinal Suenens as anything but diabolic? And yet he is a prelate in good standing with the Vatican. This is a very serious matter. It is one about which we must think carefully and deeply. The situation in the Conciliar Church is as follows: Cardinal Suenens is free to desecrate his beautiful old cathedral in the manner I have just described and to remain in good standing with the Vatican, but under no circumstances whatsoever would permission be given for the very Mass for which that ancient cathedral was built to be celebrated in it.³ And for the crime of continuing to celebrate that Mass, Archbishop Lefebvre is the victim of sanctions and is not in good standing with the Vatican. I put it to you that this is also an outrage. Make no mistake about it, as I have shown clearly in my book, Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre, this great prelate has been treated in the way he has been treated for remaining faithful to the Mass of his ordination and for no other reason. All the other excuses given for the campaign against him are simply a pretense. "Why not invite Lefebvre to the broadminded Cathedral in Hartford?” asked Father Haacke in the letter with which I began this talk. “That,” as popular song puts it,” will be the day!” Consecrations of Protestant bishops in catholic cathedrals, yes. Communion for Protestants and dancing in the aisles in Catholic cathedrals, yes. Archbishop Lefebvre and the Tridentine Mass – “No, no, no!” replies the Conciliar Church. When the Archbishop came to dedicate the foundation stone of the Immaculate Chapel at St. Mary’s Kansas, this year, the local bishop forbade any of the faithful to be present – but more than two thousand crammed themselves into the temporary chapel for the Mass of the Assumption. I was there myself. I am glad I was there. I was proud to be there, and I hope to be there again. Was I disobedient? I am sure not and I am comforted that I can now cite the authority of Dietrich von Hildebrand in support of this view.

I submit to you that in the American Church today there is absolute pluralism in questions of theology – excluding only those who wish to uphold the Catholic Faith. I submit to you that, while Father Charles Curran, the high priest of pornology, holds a chair in the Catholic University, no American Catholic need have the least compunction about ignoring the directions of his bishops where these directions are intended to stamp out the last vestiges of the traditional faith among the remaining members of the faithful remnant.⁴

Furthermore, I extend this claim to the Vatican itself. I have already mentioned the fact that Paul VI sanctioned the practice of Eucharistic hospitality for Protestants. I know that the immediate reactions of many conservative Catholics will be to say that if a Pope authorized it it must be right. This is nonsense. In their confusion, in a no doubt sincere effort to be loyal to the Pope at all costs, they are committing intellectual suicide. If they justify Pope Paul VI they are condemning all his predecessors. Such a practice was regarded as unthinkable until the pontificate of Paul VI. Do we serve the papacy better by admitting that one Pope made a serious and culpable error of judgment or by insisting that every other Pope from St. Peter onwards has been in error.

I am firmly convinced that a future Pope will have the unwelcome task of condemning many of the acts of Pope Paul VI – remember that Pope Honorius was condemned by a successor. As the Pope who sanctioned the liturgical reforms, he must accept responsibility for them – and it is in the liturgical reforms that we see the ecumenical heresy at its most blatant.

All the liturgical changes which have modified or eliminated prayers making Catholic teaching on priesthood, sacrifice, and the Real Presence explicit, were made with the authority of Paul VI. This is a fact. It is an unpleasant fact and, like most unpleasant facts, it is not easy to face up to. Then we have the Agreed Statements on the Eucharist and Ministry produced by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission. These Statements represent a straightforward betrayal of the Catholic Faith, though perhaps “straightforward” is not the right word. They are a very devious betrayal of the Catholic Faith – the Agreement on the priesthood in particular. In not one instance where an aspect of Catholic teaching is denied by Protestants is that teaching affirmed in this Statement. It is true that Pope Paul did not ratify these Agreements, but neither did he condemn them, nor did he take any action against the Catholic prelates who signed them. He received these men with smiles, warm embraces, and hearty congratulations. His condemnations were reserved for Archbishop Lefebvre.

Now that I am coming to the end of this talk I will refer once more to the magnificent letter by Father Haacke, which I quoted at the beginning. "Thomas More and John Fisher, have you died in vain?" he asked. Obviously, nothing done for the love of God is ever done in vain, but, if the ecumeniacs are correct, St. Thomas More, St. John Fisher, and all other Welsh and English martyrs, certainly died unnecessarily. I will repeat once more that what is at stake here is a question of truth. If it is true that Our Lord founded one Church which alone was authorized to preach the Gospel, offer public worship, and administer the sacraments, then the martyrs were right to die rather than compromise this principle. Before St. Margaret Clitherow was martyred, Protestant ministers announced that they would pray for her. "I will not pray with you, nor shall you pray with me," she replied. "Neither will I say Amen to your prayers, nor shall you to mine." That is the voice of a true Catholic.

Listen now to the voice of Thomas Colton, a teen-aged boy who endured terrible suffering for his faith. He refused to reduce those sufferings by so much as setting foot inside a Protestant church:
Isn't that beautiful? Isn't that heartening? Doesn't it make you proud to be a Catholic? And what do Cardinal Suenens, Archbishop Whealon and Bishop Sullivan have in common with St. Margaret Clitherow and Thomas Colton? Nothing, absolutely nothing! St. Margaret Clitherow and Thomas Colton were Catholics. These three prelates and hundreds like them are not. It is as simple as that.

And what of the ecumenical movement, what should our attitude be? I believe that it has become so contaminated with the ecumenical heresy that the Catholic Church must withdraw from it completely and return to the pre-conciliar position of exclusiveness and insistence upon her position as the one true Church founded by Jesus Christ. However, I am advocating only what theologians term dogmatic intolerance – not personal intolerance towards our Protestant friends and relations. I am not advocating burning our Protestant neighbors at the stake – I would have no such scruples as regards a good number of Catholic bishops, but that's another matter. All that I am advocating is that, if we believe that the Catholic Church is the one true Church, if we accept her claims as the one true Church, then there can be no compromise with error.

The only true Catholic attitude to ecumenism is that set out by Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Mortalium Animos:
That was the true voice of Catholic tradition. Let us remain faithful to it no matter who asks us to do otherwise.


Addendum: The 17 October 1979 issue of The Advocate, a secular journal published in Stamford, Connecticut, provided an ironic footnote to this account of Archbishop Whealon’s action in loaning his cathedral for an Episcopalian “consecration.” The Advocate reported that the ceremony was to be boycotted by conservative Episcopalian clergy because the Eucharist was to be celebrated by an Episcopalian priestess. Any comment would be superfluous beyond adding that, of course, Archbishop Whealon was not suspended a divinis for allowing the profanation of his cathedral in such a manner.



1. Apologia, Vol. I, p. 408.

2. These sermons are included in Newman Against the Liberals, a collection of twenty-five sermons by Cardinal Newman, available from The Angelus Press.

3. This criticism has ceased to apply, Beo gratias, since the indult of October 1985 authorizing the celebration of the Tridentine Mass, but although the Tridentine Mass is now authorized by the Vatican, very few bishops in the English-speaking world would permit it in their cathedrals.

4. Father Curran no longer holds the chair, Deo gratias, thanks to the intervention of the Vatican in 1986.

The Pope Silences Dr. Küng
In the years following the condemnation of Archbishop Lefebvre in 1975, many Catholics had commented upon the injustice of the severe action taken against a totally orthodox prelate when contrasted with the Vatican toleration of the flagrant heresies of Hans Küng. Mgr. Lefebvre commented upon this himself in his first letter to Pope Paul VI, remarking: "When I think of the toleration Your Holiness shows with regard to the Dutch bishops and theologians like Hans Küng and Cardonnel, I cannot believe that the cruel decisions taken against myself come from the same heart” (Apologia I, p. 104).

In Bulletin No.17 of the International Federation Una Voce, Dr. Eric de Saventhem commented:



There are several interesting aspects of this report. Firstly, unlike Universe reports concerning Mgr. Lefebvre, the tone here is decidedly mild, if not actually sympathetic towards Küng.² Ronald Singleton, who is consistently virulent in his references to the Archbishop, writes of Küng in almost reverential terms.


The decision to act against Hans Küng was a courageous one of the part of Cardinal Seper and Pope John Paul II. They knew it would incite the fury of Liberal Catholics and Protestants. It would be churlish for traditional Catholics to withhold their gratitude for this decision, but at the same time they could observe quite reasonably that it was a long overdue and that the only sanction imposed upon Dr. Küng, the withdrawal of his missio canonica, was far too mild, even ludicrously mild. Archbishop Lefebvre, who has never questioned a single defined teaching of the Church, has been suspended a divinis, and is forbidden to offer Mass in public, while Kung, who has questioned such fundamental dogmas as papal infallibility and the nature of the priesthood, has incurred no such sanction.


Some Interesting Reactions

The complete text of the condemnation of Hans Küng by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is included in Appendix I to this book. This appendix also includes Küng’s contemptuous and pompous rejection of his condemnation, and a reaction to this rejection by Josef Cardinal Höffner on behalf of the German Bishops' Conference. It should be noted that Kung's contempt for the authority of the Holy See was such that, unlike Mgr. Lefebvre, he refused to appear before the Sacred Congregation to explain his case in person.

Reference has already been made to the fact that Küng received considerable support from Protestants and Liberal Catholics. The World Council of Churches stated that: "The Pope's decision could not be regarded as an internal affair of the Catholic Church since it had immediate ecumenical repercussions." This is a most interesting point of view! The supreme authority in the Catholic Church is no longer entitled to say who shall or shall not represent the Church as an official teacher without first consulting the World Council of Churches! Dr. Stuart Blanch, the Anglican Archbishop of York, claimed that Kung was a great theologian who had put the whole world in his debt in a courageous if sometimes provocative attempt "to explain the Gospel in intellectual categories more appropriate to our time..." In an act of charming ecumenical courtesy, the Anglican Church Times asked whether Pope John Paul II “is going to turn out to be the Ayotollah of the West" (11 January 1980).

The Liberal Catholic establishment was equally indignant. The Tablet fulminated against the removal of Küng’s missio canonica in an editorial which compared this action to the pattern of "life under a Communist regime." It praised Küng as a "noble thinker," and actually demanded the abolition of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I showed this editorial to Cardinal Seper during a meeting which I had with him (see page 151). The Cardinal was highly amused, and remarked that The Tablet was a journal that "used to be Catholic." Fifty Swiss theologians announced that they were "profoundly disturbed…our faith in the Vatican is shaken." Seventy American and Canadian theologians informed the world that: "We publicly affirm our recognition that Professor Kung is indeed a Catholic theologian." The directors of Concilium, mouthpiece of the parallel magisterium of Liberal theologians, insisted that they did not see " any well-founded reason not to consider our colleague 'Hans Küng as a Catholic theologian."

The question of "human rights" was raised by many of Küng’s defenders, but not one of them explained why an individual has the right to represent any organization, religious or secular, and publicly repudiate its most fundamental principles. Some of Küng’s defenders stated that while they did not necessarily agree with his theology they defended his right to teach it. Nothing was heard from these zealous defenders of human rights and free speech when Archbishop Lefebvre was condemned and persecuted, indicating that their concern for these issues is, to put it mildly, somewhat selective.

Opinion in the secular media was typified by a comment in U.S. News and World Report, dated 31 December 1979, under the headline: "Vatican's Hard Line on Dissent":


Not all the reaction to the condemnation of Küng was hostile. A very interesting article by Thomas P. McDonnell appeared in the 4 January 1980 issue of The Pilot, (Boston). Mr McDonnell had some particularly pertinent comments to make concerning the manner in which the Küng case had been reported in the so-called Catholic press:

The bias to which Mr. McDonnell refers was well illustrated by the Universe report which was quoted earlier, even to the seeking out of spokesmen from the Liberal left. It would have been encouraging if Mr. McDonnell had shown similar concern for the distorted version of Mgr. Lefebvre's case presented in the so-called Catholic media, but, perhaps, that is asking too much, and to the best of my knowledge he has never done so.

I have quoted Protestant opinion supporting Hans Kung, support which is hardly surprising as he is, to all intents and purposes, himself a Liberal Protestant. It was thus pleasant to find two letters from Protestants defending the Vatican in the 5 January 1980 issue of The Times:



From Mr. J. W. P. Hubbard





The condemnation of Hans Küng, and the reactions to it which have been cited in this chapter, should prove a useful correctives to those traditional Catholics who see Pope John Paul II solely as a Liberal. The present Holy Father is an enigma, and to regard him either as an arch-Liberal, as many traditionalists do, or an arch-Conservative in the mold of St. Pius X, as many Liberals do, is far too simplistic an attitude. Many of his actions and attitudes are clearly harmful to the Church, and they will be criticized in this book, but this should not blind traditional Catholics to the fact that many of his actions and attitudes are totally orthodox. The condemnation of Kung also provides a useful reminder for traditional Catholics to bear in mind the fact that since the Second Vatican Council the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has published a series of documents upholding orthodox teachings on faith and morals which have been questioned by Liberals. A careful study of these documents can help to balance an exaggerated view of the extent to which Modernism has penetrated the Vatican. While its influence is clearly discernible in some Sacred Congregations, this is most certainly not the case with the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.³



1. Apologia I, pp. 105-6.

2. See Apologia I, pp. 46 and 259; Apologia II, pp. 251-254.

3. A comprehensive selection of documents published by this Congregation is provided in the second volume of the collection of conciliar and post-conciliar documents compiled by A. Flannery (see bibliography).

The Remnant - 15 February 1980

Especially convened by the Pope because of the crisis of authority reached by the Church in Holland, the Synod of Dutch Bishops ended in Rome on January 31st, with a 22-page document definitely ruling out certain innovations in the Catholic Church in Holland, and leaving some of the more hotly contested issues to "further study."

Commissions were set up to probe conditions at Holland’s theological seminary education, and to examine the activities of "pastoral workers" - the unordained men and women who have taken over much of the work of priests in the Netherlands in recent years.

Pope John Paul II attended all the sessions and, in a major address emphasizing doctrinal positions, urged the bishops in effect to "lead, not follow, their people."

According to Religious News Service, some observers summed up the conference as " a blow to liberal movements in the 5.6 million-member Church in Holland, looked to by progressives around the world as a leader of post-conciliar reform." But whether the Synod outcome can be looked upon as a victory for conservatives depends in large measure upon whether rank-and-file Catholics in Holland will respond to these initial steps, all of which are merely committed to paper at this time, and whether the bishops will make good their pledge to cooperate with the Vatican.

Meanwhile and whatever the outcome will be, Synod document ruled out definitively any alternative to a celibate, all-male clergy. Though "pastoral workers" could continue their jobs, they cannot be considered a "parallel clergy," the document said. It outlawed what it termed a "third path" between priestly celibacy and marriage, referring to this as an "ambiguous state" which is not acceptable in any circumstances.

The 17-day special Synod was called by Pope John Paul II to bring order to the Church in Holland, wracked by internal conflict between various factions. In recent years, Holland’s bishops - two of whom are labelled conservative, four liberal, and one moderate - were often at loggerheads over issues ranging from ecumenism to birth control to priestly education.

The Dutch Church’s 276 lay "pastoral workers" were told in the document that they cannot replace priests or perform priestly functions. The conclusion reaffirmed Pope John Paul’s previous emphasis on the need for a clear distinction between the priesthood and the laity. "The building up of the Church community and the exercise of its mission are entrusted to the whole community," the Pope said on 31 January during a homily at the Synod’s closing Mass. "But...this responsibility is exercised according to the charism and the place of each person in the Body of Christ."

The 46-point Synod resolution condemned several commonplace, but unauthorized, practices of the Church in Holland. It specifically vetoed inter-communion between Catholics and Protestants, thus setting a precedent also for other countries to follow. The document stated: "Inter-communion with separated brothers is not the response to the appeal of Christ for perfect unity."

Individual private Confession, a Sacrament which has virtually disappeared in Holland to be replaced by group penitential services, was reaffirmed. Collective confession "is an extraordinary method," the document said, calling on the bishops "to restore in the faithful esteem for the [traditional] sacrament...especially in its form of personal colloquium."

The Synod, which included six top Vatican officials and other religious experts in addition to the Pope and the seven Dutch bishops, reaffirmed the obligation incumbent upon the faithful to attend Mass at least every Sunday and every holy day of obligation.

It also criticized both liberal and conservative Church critics, especially those groups which bring "too great a pressure in the Church."

The Synod reaffirmed the bishops' authority to appoint and dismiss professors in Catholic institutions in Holland, an important issue in light of the Vatican's recent decision to strip Fr. Hans Küng of his teaching post at Tübingen University. The bishops must exercise their duties "in matter of the nomination or dismissal of professors," the document said. It also said that the bishops should be careful to "safeguard the ecclesial atmosphere, notably on the point of celibacy."


"Time alone will determine the outcome," are the concluding words of The Remnant report. While there can be no doubt that John Paul II convened the Dutch Synod with the very best of intentions, time has made it clear that the Liberal bishops returned to Holland and totally ignored the decisions of the Synod. Everything continued exactly as before along the path to doctrinal, liturgical and moral anarchy. It is no longer accurate to speak of the Catholic Church in Holland. Catholicism has virtually vanished from that unhappy country, with the exception of a few isolated priests and laymen who have remained orthodox, and the seminary of Rolduc opened by two conservative bishops, Gijsen and Simonis. In the years following the Synod the Pope has appointed other conservative bishops, but the Church in Holland has degenerated to such an extent that there is little that they can do to remedy the situation. This was made clear by the widespread hostility which marred the Pope's visit to Holland in 1986, hostility which erupted into violent demonstrations.