Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre - Volume Three

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

My dear brethren,

Is it not a profound joy for us all to be assembled here again, for the annual ordinations to the priesthood?

Many of you faithful pilgrims come each year to share our prayers, our joys, and our pains, but each time also numerous pilgrims come for the first time, and this year we have the special joy of receiving a group from the New World,¹ who are attending this ceremony for the first time here at Ecône. I am sure they will return home full of consolation and great joy, full of assurance and conviction that they have seen the living Church, the Church Militant, the immemorial Church. They will go back and take with them what they have seen and heard and will therefore rejoice the hearts of the faithful who have not come, but who are with us in prayer, in thought, and in spirit.

My dear brethren, on the occasion of this ordination to the priesthood, we cannot help thinking that it was ten years ago that the Society of St. Pius X was founded – ten years. The approval of Bishop Charriére for our Society was given to us on 1 November 1970, and here we are in 1980. In glancing back over these ten years, we can only sing a hymn of thanksgiving. Not to sing a hymn of thanksgiving today in our hearts, would be to ignore the favors of God, to fail in recognition and gratitude toward God Himself, to Our Lord, to the Blessed Virgin Mary, to our patron saints and especially to St. Pius X.

Yes, thanksgiving for all the favors, for all the blessings we have received – we, in particular, members of the Society of St. Pius X, and also, I would add, those who, for one reason or another, have thought it best to leave us; they have themselves paid tribute to the Society, they themselves have written to us: "We will remember all our lives the favors and graces we received in the seminary at Ecône."

We cannot help thinking that today we should thank God and we, in particular, dear friends, members of the Society of St. Pius X; priests, those who are about to be ordained priests and subdeacons today, and all seminarians here present, not to mention all those who would like to be with us – from America, from Buenos Aires – priests of the Society who could not be present, but who had to remain in their priories or in their districts; they are certainly united with us today in thought and in prayer. So we thank God for the graces we have received under the protection of our holy Pope, St. Pius X, and the Blessed Ever Virgin Mary, our Mother in Heaven.

What graces, my dear friends, above all the grace to have kept the treasures and the gifts which Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself gave to His Church, because that is the Society of St. Pius X; it is nothing else – to keep us, to receive us, to do us good and to sanctify us by the gifts which Our Lord Jesus Christ put into the hands of His Apostles, which His Apostles bequeathed to Holy Church, and which the Church has always given to us.

But today, when we consider the general condition of the churches, i.e., the parishes, the seminaries, the religious orders, then these gifts take on a value infinitely greater, because we could have been in that utterly baffling situation, thrown into total confusion. We could have found ourselves in that situation. Why has God chosen us? Why has God given us the grace to keep the Church going, and to preserve all these treasure of the Church? The treasure of faith, the treasure of grace, the treasure of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the treasure of the sacraments – treasures incomparable.

That is what we have received, my dear friends, and that is why we must thank God today; and I think I can include all who are joined to the Society of St. Pius X, in one way or another. I am thinking of our Sisters, from St. Michel-en-Brenne; I am thinking also of all our oblates, religious and lay; I am thinking also of all those who live with us, in our houses, everywhere and who are deeply united to the Society, and who therefore share in the graces of the Society. And I must not forget all those who in one way or another have kept their fidelity to the Church and who are united with us. Is it not because we are united in this unity of the Faith in the Church, and in the sacraments of the Church and in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?

I think of those monasteries where today some will receive priestly ordination – the monastery of Dom Augustine, the monastery of Dom Gerard, both here present. I think of all those monasteries and convents of nuns who have also tried to keep the Faith, to keep Tradition and therefore are united to the priests who have remained faithful and who look, in a sense, to us, asking us to support them by our prayers and our encouragement: Dominicans at Brignoles, Fanjeaux, Poncallec; Carmelites, here present; also nuns from Mainz, nuns from Schellenberg who are united with us in prayer. They could not come because they are cloistered. All these nuns, and I could not forget how many nuns are united with us in thought and in their conviction that they must keep the immemorial Faith!

So then, all the graces received, all the vocations realized – priestly vocations, religious brothers and sisters, active and contemplative vocations: this is the Church, the Church which goes on. I think of all those priests who are here present, all who have shown us by example of faithfulness, who have encouraged us, and who themselves, I think, find encouragement in the example of the Society – all this is the Church, continuing Church.

And if we should thank God for the graces which have been given to the Society, I think we should also thank God for the graces given by the Society. I cannot help thinking of all the houses, scattered across the world, forty or more houses of our priests, and besides these, many places of worship which have been opened and which are served by our Fathers every Sunday.

And, of course, I do not forget all that is done by those dear priests who, like us, defend the Faith and who dedicate themselves with their whole heart and soul to celebrating the holy and immemorial Mass, administering the immemorial sacraments to their faithful people and thus preserving the Catholic Faith. Oh, I cannot forget them, but I think above all of what has been accomplished by the grace of God by the Society of St. Pius X, the tenth anniversary of which we are celebrating; and so we can scarcely contemplate the graces which have been poured out upon us.

When I think of all the dying who have had a real priest, a priest who came to help them die a holy death, who came to bring them the consolation of the Sacraments of Extreme Unction, Communion, Viaticum, these souls have been strengthened and prepared to receive the grace of final perseverance. And all the children, all the schools that we have, by the grace of God, been able to open or to develop, so many children preserved from the contamination of the world, and who have kept the Faith. And all those families who gather in the thousands upon thousands around our churches, often makeshift little churches like catacombs, where the sanctuary lamp shines – small, but always well kept, decorated with flowers, well arranged little churches worthy of the Holy Mysteries which are celebrated, where everything is beautiful, even in poverty, by the care of the priest who faithfully preserves the ceremonies of the Church and who sees to it that his chapel is beautiful for Our Lord Jesus Christ, beautiful for the holy angels who dwell there, beautiful for the Blessed Virgin Mary. The faithful who come into these churches, are consoled, strengthened, and feel the grace of God, the grace of the Holy Ghost; and they go home refreshed, reassured that they have received into themselves the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by the Holy Communion, the Eucharist, and thus the Church goes on.

This, my dear brethren, is what the Society is: schools, priories, parishes, chapels, scattered over the world. And tomorrow, again with the grace of God, since all this is happening almost miraculously, tomorrow the opening of a university in Paris. To tell the truth, I am astonished myself. I can’t get over it. Of course we were dreaming, hoping some day to open and begin a university. And today in Paris, tomorrow in Rome, the day after tomorrow, perhaps in the United States, we would like to give the Truth, to communicate the Truth to those who no longer have it, who have lost it, who have been led astray by false modern philosophies.

What will happen to this world tomorrow if there is no longer any ability to recognize the Truth? To recognize the truth about philosophy, the truth about theology, the truth about Sacred Scripture, and thus to recognize Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. What a joy then for us to think that these young men and women who will come to receive this university education, will be pillars of the Truth, luminaries of the Truth – everywhere they will be, and probably in important positions, which will make them a beacon for the spread of Truth.

So we thank God again that He Himself has sent us the professors we needed. These professors themselves came to us in Paris and told us: "It is this year or never for us; either you take us this year or we get other jobs and you can no longer count on us." What was I to do? Good professors, committed, who said: "From now on, after all that we have been through, we wish to be under the Society of St. Pius X; we wish to teach under the authority of the Society of St. Pius X; we wish one of your priests there, to direct and counsel us, because we feel that there, at least, the Church will be, and the Truth." So what was I do do? Faced with this proposition, in spite of the difficulties which that could mean, we decided to open this university; that is what God wanted, a unique, extraordinary occasion, which God has given us, something like a tenth anniversary gift. Let us thank Him.

This, my dear brethren, is what God has done by means of the Society of St, Pius X. And tomorrow, what will we be? Well, we will always be the same, we do not have to search out our path; we can only remain the Church; we can only keep the Church going; we can only keep preaching Our Lord Jesus Christ, preaching the Truth, teaching the Truth, and tomorrow – well, if God wishes (and I think He does wish it, and will wish it), He will integrate us into the official Church, just as we are, just as we are.

It is not a question of changing, of going either to the right or to the left; we wish to remain the Church and we wish to remain what we have always been since the beginning of the Society, because we have no other motive than to keep the Church going; and thus we have always thought that one day, when God wills it, when He decides, then we will go back into the official Church, since they have put us out of an official Church which is not the real Church, [but] an official Church which has been infested with Modernism; and so we believed in the duty of disobedience, if indeed it was disobedience! To obey, but to obey the immemorial Church, to obey all the popes, to obey the whole Catholic Church. So we thought it our duty to disobey those cardinals who asked us to adopt, in part, Modernist errors, because we did not want to poison our souls and our hearts with the errors which have been condemned by our holy patron, St. Pius X, and we remain faithful to the Anti-Modernist Oath – the oath which St. Pius X requires us to take. We remain faithful to that. They will receive us with the oath in our hands, or we will remain what we are. And we are convinced, we pray for this, and perhaps, my dear brethren, things will soon work out. This goal which seems impossible – to be taken as we are, with what we are doing, with what we are accomplishing, with our Faith – this seems almost impossible. But God can do the impossible, and we are more hopeful than ever, we are perhaps closer than ever, to being recognized officially in holy Church, as the Society of St. Pius X, with all that we are, all that we think, all that we believe, all that we do.

And so, by the same token, all those who, like us, have defended the same Faith, the same Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the same Sacraments, will come with us, will be accepted by us. There is no doubt about it. So we must pray today, in a very special way, for this intention, because you can imagine what we would be, how many we would be here, if we were not persecuted by certain members of the Church. Not five or six thousand, but twenty, fifty thousand, would profit by the graces that God gives us, that the Church gives to us, whereas now they are dying without Christ, perishing, losing the Faith, abandoned. We must think of all these souls and hope these unjust persecutions against us may cease.

I close, my dear friends, with a few words to you who are about to be ordained priests, and to you I say, "Keep your faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ.” Everything depends on Our Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing exists without Our Lord Jesus Christ, nothing in the material world, nothing in the supernatural world. Without Jesus there is nothing. Jesus is the Creator of all things, Jesus is the Redeemer of all souls. Without Him, there is no hope. Without Him, there is no being, no possible existence. So what is Our Lord Jesus Christ? What are the essentials that you have studied in your theology? Jesus Christ is Savior; Jesus Christ is Priest; Jesus Christ is King. These are the three essential attributes of Our Lord Jesus Christ by the very fact of His hypostatic union, i.e., His union with God Himself in One Person.

So these three attributes: Savior-Redeemer, Priest and King, where are they made concrete? Where do we live them? Where do we grasp them? In Holy Mass. In Holy Mass Our Lord Jesus Christ is Redeemer. Who can deny that? The Sacrifice of the Cross is His Redemption, the Redemption of Our Lord. Thus in offering your Holy Sacrifice of the Mass you contribute to the Redemption of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Redemption which Our Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished.

Priest. But where is He more priest than in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? He is the Priest, you are only His ministers, you act only in the person of Christ, Who is the true Priest; thus your Sacrifice of the Mass is still Our Lord Jesus Christ in one of His essential attributes.

And finally, King. "God reigned from the Cross." Our Lord reigned from the wood of the Cross; that is His throne, that is His crown. There He has conquered the world, and there He has a right to His kingship. So it is also in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that His Kingship shines forth irresistibly; we must all submit to Him and revere, adore and thank Him as King.

And so – Redeemer, Priest and King – this is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; all the days of your lives you will discover Our Lord in His essential attributes, and you will share in them.

Poor creatures that we are! To share in the essential attributes of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to share in His Redemption, to share in His Priesthood, to share in His Kingship – what responsibility! What a responsibility to all His faithful people! What a profound joy for you! With what humility and what joy you should perform these sacred mysteries. You should also bring your people to share in these attributes of Our Lord, by Holy Communion, by giving Jesus Christ Himself in the Eucharist. What a joy! Nothing is more beautiful than the priest distributing Holy Communion, nothing is greater, more sublime, nothing richer in virtues, in gifts, in graces. The faithful expect this of you.

Therefore, be faithful, my dear friends, be faithful to all you have been taught here at Ecône. It is only the echo of what the Church has always taught. Remain close to your seminary, remain close to what has made you a priest, remain close to the Society of St. Pius X; in this way you will go on, while waiting for your reward from the hands of your Mother in heaven, the Mother of the Priesthood, who has been by your side, here at Ecône, every day.

Oh, how touched we are, every evening, when we see you kneeling before the Blessed Virgin Mary before taking your rest; you say some prayers to the Blessed Virgin Mary, commending yourselves to her, asking her to sustain you, asking her to help you to become holy priests. And now, here you are ready to be sent out, ready to go, as Our Lord said, “Go forth, preach the Gospel!” that is what you will do, and all our prayers today will go with you, the prayers of your parents, your friends, and all those who love you and who are united with you here below and in heaven.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.



1. The Angelus pilgrimage

Respectfully, patiently, after the visit of Pope John Paul II to France, we renew our case : in spite of all the official declarations over the marvelous results of the Council, the Church Militant today is in decay. She will recover herself in sanctity; and by the path of authority. This authority will show up in a practical way by beginning again to forbid what should be forbidden; and to stop forbidding what should never have forbidden in the first place. It should never have been forbidden to priests to say the Mass they were ordained to celebrate: this prohibition, without any legal or moral value, exists only by virtue of the sociological weight of arbitrary administrative decision. The Catechism of the Council of Trent and the Catechism of St. Pius X should never have been banned, blocking the handing down of the three things that must be known in order to be saved: this prohibition is null and void. Neither the person of Archbishop Lefebvre, nor the re-birth of the missionary Church,should ever have been struck by prohibition.Because the missionary church is the means by which people are converted from the modern world to the Christian Faith. It is the opposite of a Church exposed to all influences, leading souls to despair of the traditional Faith and let themselves be debased by modern democracy.

Patiently, respectfully, we say by way of reminder and petition: Archbishop Lefebvre is not a rebel! All the condemnations lodged against him rest on a single foundation, on the initial fact that he has not accepted the first condemnation, that of 1975.² Everything flows from that: not to have submitted and to have complicated his case by persisting in not submitting. Now this first condemnation has no legal or moral right to exist. Even today, five years later, we do know by whom it was lodged, we do not know who is responsible for it : there is no mention of it in any document. There is strong suspicion that it was Paul VI himself, but secretly. This initial condemnation arose from the unbelievable scheme of inviting Archbishop Lefebvre to two friendly talks, concealing from him the fact that in reality he was being summoned as a defendant with the object of conducting an investigation against him. Thus Archbishop Lefebvre was not given to understand what was happening before he was condemned; and he was condemned anonymously, by someone whose identity cannot be discovered in the official texts of the verdict which was made known to him. And it is this legal non-entity that is the basis for all that has subsequently been viciously built up, and comprising the so-called sanctions and suspension. If it had been a question of simply disciplinary cruelty touching only his personal convenience, Archbishop Lefebvre would have been able to bow to the injustice. But it was a question of a major administrative move against the handing down of the knowledge necessary for salvation and against the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. This is why Archbishop Lefebvre has continued to view his missionary activity according to the powers, rights, and abilities which were his after the foundation of his Society and which have not validly been forbidden him. The result has been a sad and confused situation. The only way out is to declare the nullity of the arbitrary prohibitions and to return to fundamental norms.

What fundamental norms? First, the principle that it is not true that one can be validly excluded from the Catholic communion simply for having formulated an opinion – however bold or reckless – on the pastoral orientation and modern spirit of Vatican II and Pope Paul VI. It is not true that one can continue to belong to the Catholic communion when one no longer adheres to the dogmatic decisions of Nicea or Trent. By an anomaly which amounts to treason, too many of those in the present-day apostolic succession admit to their communion those who water down or brush aside the dogmatic decisions of Nicea or of Trent, so that they may profess adherence, at least general or verbal, to non-dogmatic orientations of Vatican II; and they drive from their communion those who question the modern orientations of Vatican II but profess all defined dogmas. It is a “communion” of a new type, suggested by Teilhard, a humanist communion, ecumenical, philanthropic, democratic, or whatever, but no longer a Catholic communion. The prohibitions designed to set up, defend and impose the new communion have no validity in the Church.

We said so at the end of the reign of Paul VI, when he declared in the spring of 1978: My pontificate is completed. We recalled that Pius XI at the end of his reign was convinced that he should lift the unjust ban lodged against Action Française: by putting it off, he ran out of time. The lifting of the ban, virtually without conditions, was one of the first acts of his successor, Pius XII. Though fundamentally different in many ways, the so-called “Lefebvre case” and that of the “traditionalists,” is analagous in this: there is no other way out. The longer we wait, the deeper will be the wounds to the Church, and the more advanced the decay of the Catholic fabric. Doubtless there will remain a number of unanswered questions: but they will begin to be manageable about the moment we recognize the nullity of the prohibitions against the Mass, against the catechism, against the person of Archbishop Lefebvre and against the priests whom he has formed and ordained, waiting for the Second Spring of the Church.

While we wait, we repeat with Alexis Curvers: May it please God to make of Pope John Paul II the instrument of salvation, granting to him the triple grace of a faith as trusting as that of Jairus, as profound as that of the widow of Niam, as passionate as that of Martha, in a word, all-powerful against death.

1. Jean Madiran is the Editor of Itinéraires. This article is a translation of his editorial for the July/August 1980 issue.
2. The reasons for the Archbishop not accepting his initial condemnation in 1975 are explained on pages 122-123 of Apologia I.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen

Dear Father, from now on you are a priest. You no longer face years of formation, but rather a burden of responsibility. The great honor of the priesthood is yours, with the grace of God, with the support of those who love you and of all those who, already in heaven, put their mantle of protection around you so that you may be able to carry out a wonderful apostolate.

As we all know, you have been chosen to lend a helping hand to all those who will come to the Catholic university soon to be opened in Paris, where you will have a special apostolate, marked by a special enthusiasm and a special importance, because this is what Our Lord Himself did. He chose a small group, He formed His Apostles, and with these twelve Apostles He transformed the world. An apostolate based on a chosen few is a very important apostolate. You will have to bring these souls, especially chosen by God, to an understanding of the ideal they are searching for, and to make of it a Christian ideal, so that, whatever the vocation to which they are called, they will fulfill it in a Christian manner, a Catholic manner, in union with Our Lord, according to the teachings of Our Lord, in the light of Our Lord Jesus Christ, because Our Lord came to you too, as to us, when He said to His Apostles and His disciples: “You are the light of the world."

And so, particularly in this task to which you have been assigned, you will be the light of the world. Now what is the light of the world? Where is this light of the world? Our Lord Himself gives the answer: "I am the Light of the world." We don't have to look for it; it is already there. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Light of the World, Light, that is to say, from God. Could we have a light more clear, more dazzling than one which comes from God Himself, which is God? Our Lord is God, so we will find the light in Him, and He is what you will teach. You will act as St. Paul, who said, "I have wanted to know nothing among you except Christ and Him crucified." This is what St. Paul said; his entire message is summed up in this – to speak of Christ, Christ Crucified.

Your task will be to show these chosen souls how to know Christ, how to unite themselves with Our Lord, meditating on His words, on His life, on what He is; and in this way they will find the light of their life. What a beautiful apostolate! How I hope these souls entrusted to you may profit from your ministry and give to the world the basic principles it needs, the basic principles of our first catechism, the catechism which summarizes the teachings of the Church, all the teachings of Our Lord. This should be the foundation of the life of every individual, of family life, of social life, political life. We must lay this foundation which is so necessary for people and for families, so that peace and prosperity and the truly Christian life which ours should be, may flourish.

And you will not only be the light of these souls; you will also give them life – the life of Our Lord. Not only His light, but His own life, the supernatural life of grace, grace which you will give them in the sacraments and especially in the Sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion – sacraments which we need almost every day to sustain us in the spiritual life. You will make them understand that they need these sacraments, this life, this divine life. Today, alas, it is so hard to lift oneself up to these spiritual realities, as we are caught up in the material world, the materialistic world which wants to know only earthly joys and closes its eyes to eternal realities.

It is hard to understand that the supernatural life, the divine life of Our Lord in us, is the one thing necessary. It is what will get us to heaven. We should be already in eternity, at this moment. Our soul is eternal and imperishable and therefore we must bathe our soul in the life of Our Lord, in the supernatural life and make it truly full of eternal life. The day God calls us and tells us that our life here below is over, that life will continue, as it says so well in the Preface of the Requiem Mass, "Life is not taken away but changed.” God does not extinguish our life. It goes on, with a change. It changes, yes, in incidental ways, but it does not end; it goes on, if we have been careful to imbue it with the eternal life of Our Lord Jesus Christ. So this is what you will do; you will build this bridge between the life of God, the life of Our Lord, and these souls who will come to you, searching for true life.

And finally you will set an example. As Our Lord said, you are not only the salt of the earth, you are not only the light of the world, but you act in such a way that the world may give glory to God when they see your works: “…and seeing your good works they will glorify the Father Who is in heaven.”

You will set this example, therefore, and exemplify the virtues of Our Lord by gentleness, goodness and perseverance in the priestly life, in the apostolate. And you will do good for souls, for all who come to you. This should be your ideal.

I am sure you already understand this, and I am sure that you realize that what I have been talking about is nothing more than an extension of your Mass. Live your Mass every day, every second of your life, prolong it through the course of the day, that is, prolong the teaching you give us in the words of the Epistle and Gospel, the words of Our Lord. Prolong this life of sacrifice which you will make present, in a few moments, on the altar, by the presence of Our Lord, who is prolonging His Sacrifice of the Cross and showing us His love. Here it is: you will love souls, you will give yourself to souls, you will sacrifice yourself for souls, for love, for love of God and love of your neighbor. This is the whole Sacrifice of the Mass. You will give yourself to souls as you give Communion. You will give Christ to souls through knowledge of Him, Christ in His life. This is your Holy Mass, this is the Communion you will give, this is the Christ you will give to souls. Thus your whole priestly life is a continuous Mass. You are a priest. You have begun your first Mass. But your Mass must never end. Your whole life now will be a continual Mass. May God give you the grace to live your Mass and encourage all around you to do the same, and to understand that our whole lives should be a Mass, an oblation which is complete and continuous, a continuous sacrifice of ourselves for love of God and love of our neighbor.

This is your ideal, this is what we are going to pray for all together, today, pray for you that this joy of yours, the profound joy of offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, may remain in you, that you may continue in this joy, in this spiritual peace which will make you a true priest.

I must not end without putting you under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mary was with the Eternal High Priest throughout His life, right up to His complete self-sacrifice on the Cross. She was there. So then, be assured that Mary, Mother of the priest, will be with you too, all the days of your life.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Ghost. Amen.



1. Translated from Fideliter, September/October 1980 (No. 17).

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

This nineteenth semi-annual letter coincides with the tenth anniversary of the official approval given to our Society by His Excellency Mgr. Charriere, Bishop of Fribourg, on November 1st, 1970. How many events since that date have shown that the Church has been veritably seized and occupied by Modernism. Many books have described in a disturbing way the result of this penetration into Roman ranks and into episcopal curias.

In the face of this sad spectacle, which gets worse every year, one could even say every month, we put aside our expressions of indignation and sadness. Still, we could deplore the persecution whose object is the most worthy and venerable priests, such as our dear friend Canon Catta, treasurer of the Visitandines of Nantes for forty years, and dean of the chapter. More than eighty years of age, he was deprived shortly before his death of his function as dean of the chapter. Mistreated by his confrères at the rest home, he sought refuge for his meals with the Visitandines, who ended by asking him to return to the rest home where, broken-hearted, he succumbed to cardiac arrest, and all this because he persevered in celebrating the Holy Mass of his ordination. His burial was completely contrary to what he had requested. Thus, traditionalists are pursued beyond death, for the crime of fidelity.

On the tombs of these holy priests, over the graves of so many of the faithful, prematurely dead because of this grievous persecution, we should take our oath of fidelity, an oath which is none other than the profession of faith and the Anti-Modernist Oath of St. Pius X, the last canonized Pope. Supported by twenty centuries of Faith and Tradition, we can and must persevere without fear, in the conviction that Truth must triumph, because it is divine. Our Lord said it: "I am the Truth."

Instead of complaining and being discouraged, let us thank God Who everywhere blesses the efforts of those who persevere in the Faith and in Tradition. It would be impossible to note in detail the countless blessings which we have witnessed, or which have been confided to us by those who have received them. The many vocations which are joining the Society or the many communities faithful to Tradition, each have their own moving story. They are flowers blooming amid the brambles and thorns.

Retreat masters of the Society could write books about the conversions they have witnessed. Priests who minister to summer camps tell us with deep emotion of the extraordinary return to the Faith and to the practice of religion recovered by contact with Tradition and above all with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Foundations such as schools, universities, seminaries all have a story which reveals the intervention of Divine Providence. And all the works faithful to Tradition bear witness in the same way. One small example: the bishop of Kansas City (USA), put on the market a large, spacious church, furnished with beautiful altar, organ and pews seating a thousand. The Father in charge of the Southern District made efforts to acquire it through a third party, but the bishop's office got wind of who the buyer was, and his link with Archbishop Lefebvre. The answer was a categorical refusal to sell. A black Protestant bishop then appeared on the scene. Not only was this purchaser very welcome, but, in the name of ecumenism, the price was cut by half. Now, for reasons unknown, this Protestant bishop hastened to re-sell the church to our District Superior, who thus benefitted by the lower price. So the Society from now on can accommodate many of the faithful for beautiful ceremonies in a splendid church in the heart of Kansas City.

Let us keep our trust and our courage, as St. Paul says: “If God is with us, who can be against us?" This month let us pray to the Virgin Mary to deliver Holy Church from her enemies within, as she did at the time of St. Pius V from enemies without.

Help us with your prayers and your generosity to pursue the work of rejuvenating the Church with true and holy priests. May God bless you.

+Marcel Lefebvre

Rickenbach,
1 October 1980



The Feast of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on Saturday, October 11th, witnessed an important step forward in the history of the Society of St. Pius X, namely the inauguration in Paris of the Society's first traditional Catholic university – the Institut Universitaire St. Pie X. Staffed by professors drawn from the faculties of the Sorbonne and other French universities, the Institute is pledged to traditional Catholic teaching in the arts, offering degrees in philosophy, history, and literature. As much of the confusion in today’s world is due to a lack of training in these fields, the Institute should prove to be of vital importance in bringing souls back to the Truth of the Catholic Church.

The University’s Rector is Rev. Alain Lorans, recently ordained by Archbishop Lefebvre at Ecône. After a conference in which he described the aims of the University, the buildings and grounds were blessed by His Grace, Archbishop Lefebvre, who went on to offer Solemn High Mass at the Church of St. Nicholas du Chardonnet in the heart of Paris. During this Mass, Fr. Lorans pronounced the Anti-Modernist Oath of St. Pius X, pledging himself and the entire faculty "to uphold unto our last breath the faith of our fathers."

Your Excellency,

In the last few months of 1976 Pope Paul VI entrusted the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith with the task of examining your stance with respect to the teaching and the discipline of the Apostolic See.

In the execution of this mandate, the Congregation studied your position according to the norms of its Ratio agendi of 15 January 1971; following the standard examination of the dossier by canon lawyers and cardinals, you were sent two letters – on 28 January 1978 and 16 March 1978 respectively – asking for explanations of points which raised difficulties. On receiving your replies, still in conformity with the Ratio agendi, a meeting was agreed, which events delayed and which could be held on 11/12 January 1979.¹ On leaving this meeting you saw fit to take exception to the pursuit of the normal procedures and to appeal directly to His Holiness Pope John Paul II, whom you had met some weeks earlier.² It was then that the Sovereign Pontiff personally mandated me to pursue the dialogue with you which took place in a series of private meetings on five occasions between 8 May 1979 and 27 March of this year (i.e., 1980). Several questions were broached at various points. I must now attempt an appraisal with a view to reaching a concrete solution if possible.

Thanks to your explanations, I believe I can say that certain aspects of your situation, intentions, and actions are now more clear than they were in your previous writings or sermons, and this has not been without some positive elements. Unfortunately the gap between your position and that of the Holy See has not been reduced for all that, for difficulties still exist in certain statements made by you during the meeting or in the course of our private discussions.

Furthermore, you have continued to do and to say things in public which present obstacles to the desired solution. For the sake of clarity I must mention them here.

3. Finally, it is not possible to pass over in silence the introduction which you signed for the publication in the periodical Itinéraires (May 1979) of “des actes de la procédure” (“Tradition face to face with Liberal Ecumenism: Ecône and the former Holy Office”); and still less what you have said on your travels, constant remarks – and, allow me to say so, with hasty generalizations which are as many grave injustices – concerning some of the Acts of the Second Vatican Council, the reforms issuing from it, the Roman Curia, and the entire Catholic hierarchy. Let me remind you only of the lectures that you gave in Brussels on 30 November 1979 and in Madrid on 19 April1980, as well as your sermon in Venice on 7 April last⁵, and also the one that you gave on 27 June at Ecône.⁶

Despite all this, as I believe that I reminded you at each of our private meetings, the Holy Father has always shown that he wishes to find a solution in your case. While awaiting a clear expression of regret on your part for the unjust attacks that you have made upon the Council, the bishops, and even the Apostolic See, as well as for the difficulties, indeed the disquiet that your activities have caused the faithful, Pope John Paul II maintains feelings of fraternal charity for you. I now present you with our final proposals, dictated by him in person.

1. As far as the teaching of Vatican II is concerned: that you declare yourself ready to accept it in the sense suggested by Pope John Paul II, that is to say, "the Council must be understand in the light of the whole of holy Tradition, and on the basis of the unvarying Magisterium of Holy Mother Church." (Allocution to the Sacred College, 5 November 1979, d. A.A.S. LXXI [1979-11], p. 1452: “quatenus intelligitur sub sanctæ Traditionis lumine et quatenus ad constans Ecclesiæ ipsius magisterium refertur").

The Holy Father also expects from you what is demanded of all in the Church, that is religiosum voluntatis et intellect us obsequium owed to the true Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra, and to the teaching on Faith and Morals given in Christ’s name by the bishops in communion with the Roman Pontiff (cf. the Constitution Lumen Gentium, No.25).

Of course, such adherence must take account of the theological qualification that the Council itself wished to give to its teachings, and which figures in its Acts as a Note made during the 125th Congregation, on 16 November 1964. I do not feel it inappropriate to call to mind the essentials of this here: “In view of conciliar practice and the pastoral purpose of the present Council, this sacred Synod defines matters of faith and morals as binding on the Church only when the Synod itself openly declares so. Other matters which the sacred Synod proposes as the doctrine of the supreme teaching authority of the Church, each and every member of the faithful is obliged to accept and embrace according to the mind of the sacred Synod itself, which becomes known either from the subject matter or from the language employed, according to the norms of theological interpretation."

You are to understand that this is a preliminary and indispensable condition. If it is fulfilled, the Holy Father could envisage authorizing the celebration of Holy Mass according to the rites of the Roman Missal before the reform of 1969.

To this end, the Holy Father would be ready to designate a delegate directly responsible to himself, who would be entrusted with the task of studying, jointly with you, the means of regularizing your position as well as that of members of the Society of St. Pius X, by the drawing up of a statute appropriate for solving a question that is indeed complex.

In this respect may I remind you that you yourself said during the colloquium of January 1979 that you might accept such a nomination of a pontifical delegate in due course.

Once you have accepted the aforementioned points – and this must be in a declaration that can be published – the Sovereign Pontiff would be prepared to lift the canonical censure upon the irregularities, these censures having been incurred both by you yourself and by the priests you have ordained in breach of Canon Law since 1976 (as far as the latter are concerned, provided of course that they abide by your actions).

Such, Your Excellency, are the proposals that Pope John Paul II has asked me to put to you.

I entrust them to your attention and consideration in the sight of Our Lord and His holy Mother, asking you to remember that they demand a reply from you befitting the serious nature of the decisions that must now be taken.

Please accept, Excellency, the expression of my devoted and fraternal sentiments.

Fran. Card. Seper.

1. See Apologia II, pp. 277-295.
2. See Apologia II, pp. 302-304.
3. Ordinary, I.e., diocesan bishop.
4. See Apologia II, p. 368-373
5. See pages 134-140.
6. See pages 204-212.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

My dear friends, my dear brothers,

The Feast of All Saints, the ordination which is going to take place in a few minutes, and the anniversary of the foundation of the Society – these are so many events which gives us a unique opportunity to meditate on the question of holiness, and of the holiness of the priesthood.

Actually, if there is one reason for choosing those who should offer the Holy Mysteries, it is their holiness. I think that if we consider all those who today enjoy the glory of heaven, all the saints who are united to Our Lord Jesus Christ, to the Most Holy Virgin Mary, to all the holy angels who sing the glory of God and of Our Lord Jesus Christ, if we should ask them, each one, the means, the path of their sanctification, there is no doubt that they would reply: the path of sanctification is Our Lord Jesus Christ, and Our Lord Jesus Christ Crucified, the path of perfection, the path of holiness is the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

So, if it is true that the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ is the means of our sanctification, you see immediately what the reason for the priest should be…the path of sanctification for him whose very identity is to offer the Holy Sacrifice, and to offer therefore in the very Person of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in His own name, the continuation of His Sacrifice of the Cross; it is in the Sacrifice of the Cross that the priest will find the fundamental reason, the essential, the continual reason of his sanctification, it will be also for him the means of sanctifying the faithful. For the faithful the path of sanctification is the same as that of the priest, it is the way of the Cross.

St. Paul so beautifully teaches us what a priest is in his Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter five. He says: “Every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. Because of this he is bound to offer sacrifice for his own sins as well as for those of the people." He adds, as he is himself weighed down with weaknesses, that he (the priest) should sympathize with those who are ignorance and error. He should strive to have compassion on those who are in error and with those who are in ignorance. This is the secret of the Sacrament of Penance. The priest is therefore made to offer the Holy Sacrifice, to transmit the graces of the Sacrifice, especially in the Sacrament of Penance, exerting himself for those who are in error and ignorance. Since he is himself a sinner, he must offer the Holy Sacrifice also for himself, for his own sins, and not only for the sins of the people of God. See how, in a few lines, St. Paul sums up the very essence of the priest.

Thus, my dear friends, you who are going up to the altar in a few minutes to receive an ordination which will prepare you to offer the Holy Mysteries of God, the Holy Mysteries of Our Lord Jesus Christ – meditate on these words of St. Paul. Know that you too are weak, know too that you are sinners, and yet the Good Lord has chosen you! St. Paul further says: the priest has not chosen himself but he has been chosen, like Aaron, like the Levites, chosen by God to offer the Holy Sacrifice, to offer the true Sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Prepare yourselves, my dear friends, to receive the grace of the priesthood in order to be true priests, holy priests such as the Church wants.

What have we seen for twenty years now? Instead of returning to these fundamental notions of the Church, which are her foundation and cornerstone, a new spirit has been introduced; a new spirit which, far from bringing a return to the true meaning of the Holy Mysteries, has approached the mysteries of the Protestant Last Supper, thus destroying what there was of mystery – profound, divine, sacred – in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. In comparing our Sacrifice, the sacrifice of Our Lord, with the unworthy sacrifice of the Protestants, the Sacrifice of the Mass has been emptied of meaning. Now it is plainly evident; we can see every day, the results of this change of attitude in priests, a change which has been introduced under the influence of the Modernists who have invaded the Church. The Church has not done this thing, it is the Modernists and progressivists who have invaded the Church and who have imposed on Catholics an idea of the Sacrifice of the Mass which is not the true idea of the Sacrifice of the Mass, which has emptied the Sacrifice of the Mass of meaning.

That is why we have resisted. We are not rebels, we are not schismatics, we are not heretics. We resist. We resist this wave of Modernism which has invaded the Church, this wave of laicism, of progressivism which has invaded the Church in a wholly unwarranted and unjust manner and which has tried to erase in the Church all that was sacred in it, all that was supernatural, divine, in order to reduce it to the dimension of man. So we resist and we will resist, not in a spirit of rebellion, but in the spirit of fidelity to the Church, the spirit of fidelity to God, and to Our Lord Jesus Christ, the spirit of fidelity to all who have taught us our holy religion, the spirit of fidelity to all the popes who have maintained Tradition. This is why we have decided simply to keep going, to persevere in Tradition, to persevere in that which has sanctified the saints who are in heaven. Doing so we are persuaded we are rendering a great service to the church, to all the faithful who wish to keep the Faith, all the faithful who wish to receive truly the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Little by little, apparently, some authorities in the Church are beginning to realize – more objectively – that serious mistakes have been made, and that it is perhaps time, if not to return completely to the former ways of things, which would be ideal, then to reform their reforms. It is at least a first step. Alas! It has taken twelve years of these tragic results: defection of priests, defection of members of religious orders, the ruin of novitiates, the ruin even of religious holiness, the ruin of churches, the apostasy of so many faithful. All this had to happen before our eyes so that a start could be made slowly to realize the damage which this reform has caused – reform which was not made by the Church but which has been carried out by those who were imbued with ideas contrary to those which the Church has always taught.

Recently I have been re-reading the encyclical Humani Generis of Pope Pius XII, which he promulgated in 1950. This encyclical is neither more nor less than a condemnation of all that has happened since the Council. It is impossible to admit that what has happened since the Council and to admit at the same time that Pope Pius XII was right in his encyclical Humani Generis.

We have made our choice. We obey the popes, the popes of Tradition and we are persuaded we are rendering great service to the Church and that we find here the way of Truth.

This, I think, is what we should see in today's Feast, in this ordination which is an ordination performed like those of Tradition; in the Feast of All Saints; where all the saints teach us to remain in Tradition, to do what they did to sanctify themselves, to do what they did to get to heaven.

This is quite simply what we are doing. We carry out the same rites, the same rubrics, the same prayers, we adore the same God, we adore Our Lord Jesus Christ, we believe in our immemorial catechism as they did and believed. This is what got them to heaven. We too wish to save our souls, we wish to follow our ancestors in the faith and to be martyrs with them if necessary, like those who became martyrs in order to profess their faith.

Finally, we wish, because the Society has been the means of maintaining Tradition, we wish to maintain the ends of the Society and thus to keep the Church going, to keep the Church going in order to save souls, in order to give holy priests to the souls of the faithful who wait impatiently until they can again find true and holy priests.

There you have it, my dear friends, that is what the ceremonies and the Feast we celebrate today have to teach us. I would like you to find in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the whole reason of your holiness, so that under the vigilance and protection of the of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, who so well understood the Mystery of the Cross, who lived the Mystery of the Cross with Our Lord Jesus Christ in an entirely unique way, with an infinite wisdom. Yes, we ask the Most Holy Virgin Mary to help us understand the profound Mystery of the Cross. There we find all the answers, my dear friends, all the answers.

Whenever in our lives problems arise, problems of all sorts, every possible and imaginable human problem, do not search anywhere but in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ. There you will find the answer to the problems of each and every individual. Souls will come to confide in you, they will confide all kinds of problems to you. You will say to them always: look at the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, because in this Cross – which the Apostles taught, especially St. Paul – in this Cross is the answer to all problems, because the Cross is Charity, it is Love, love to the point of Sacrifice. All problems resolve themselves in Charity, Charity carried to the point of death if necessary.

Recently, during the Synod, I was in Rome and had the opportunity to meet with several cardinals who were discussing the problems of marriage, problems which seem today much more difficult than formerly – it would seem that problems were not found among married until today – I had the opportunity of saying to them: without sacrifice it is impossible to resolve the problems of marriage, and all other problems besides, not just these. But to exclude sacrifice from marriage is to exclude Christianity from marriage. It is useless to talk for weeks on end about the Christian family and exclude the idea of sacrifice. That is leaving out the real answer, leaving out the real remedy, and thus to remain without an answer.

When it comes to economic, social, political problems, problems of those in hospital beds, there is only one answer: the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is justice, such as Our Lord Jesus Christ realized on the Cross; to render to God that which is God's and to render to our neighbor what is our neighbor's. This is what Our Lord did on the Cross. There is no more beautiful act of love of God, no more beautiful act of love of neighbor, than that which Our Lord accomplished on the Cross. All problems resolve themselves in this Figure of the Cross, of Sacrifice.

There you have it, dear friends, what your program should be, the program of your seminary, the program of your priesthood. Thus you will truly be disciples of Our Lord Jesus Christ, you will be truly what is said of a priest – what should be said of a priest: that a priest is another Christ.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.