In the Heart of the Church - August 1981

The Angelus - February 1982





Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is always a great joy for me to return to this beautiful Republic of Argentina. I'm already beginning to know the country, but unfortunately, I am not yet able to speak to you in Spanish and I will have to seek Father Faure's help to translate for me.

We know that many questions are being asked about my attitude in the Church, about my position in the Church. What is the attitude of Monsignor Lefebvre in the Catholic Church? What is the situation of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X in the heart of the Church?

I would like to be able to answer these questions in the most exact and correct manner. To do this I think we are obliged to consider briefly what the actual situation in the Church is, and in this way explain the reasons for our attitude and our position.

I think that finding myself before a select audience—before a profoundly Catholic audience—it will not be necessary for me to insist on what the situation in the Church was until Vatican Council II. It can be said, in a general way, that the Church, the men of the Church, such as they were during the time of Pope Pius XII, whom I knew personally when I was Apostolic Delegate for French Africa, were very different from what they are today. I had the opportunity to meet frequently with Pius XII every year for eleven years.

I can say that generally, in the Roman Congregations and in the Vatican, there existed a very profound sense of the Catholic Faith. They truly worked for the reign of the Faith of Our Lord Jesus Christ and for the social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ—a reign over people, over families and over society.

Indeed, you know well that for four centuries great efforts have been made to fight against that Catholic doctrine, that Faith of the Church, but the truth is that when one went to the Vatican, he would find that the Catholic Faith was alive in all those Roman Congregations and there would be found considerable support, above all for a missionary bishop such as I was. At that time, if we needed to enlighten our faith on some point of doctrine, it was sufficient to consult the congregation of the Holy Office to obtain a precise and clear answer, in conformity with the Faith of the Church and its Magisterium. There was no hesitation!

In the same way, to know what kind of relations the Vatican wanted to maintain between the Holy See and civil societies, it sufficed to direct oneself to the Secretariat of State which had then, very clear and very precise principles before the states which were not Catholic regarding Catholic states. For example, I remember well that in General Franco's time, in Spain, Pope Pius XII used to tell me that never had there been realized an agreement so conformed to Catholic doctrine as the agreement reached with the Spanish government. To make such a statement was a most extraordinary thing for the Holy Father to do.

There was experienced then, in all these dominions the secular knowledge of the Church, just as the knowledge and protection of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary towards her children can be felt. When the principles of the relations between the Vatican and the states were facilitated by the Catholic Faith there were no difficulties in anything having to do with relations of the states with the Church. Regarding Her mission of saving souls, when the states were Catholic, the Holy See counted on the support of the chiefs of state, of whom She asked that Our Lord Jesus Christ be the one to reign in society. When the chiefs of state drew up a constitution they would provide in the first article that "the Catholic religion is the only one officially recognized by the state." In this way, what the Holy See wanted was accomplished: the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of souls, not in order to have a temporal influence in those states.

Concerning states that were not Catholic, for example Senegal, where I spent fifteen years as Archbishop over 3,500,000 inhabitants. There were 3,000,000 Moslems and 500,000 Animists, of which, happily, 100,000 were converted to the Faith. We were, consequently, a small minority. And what did the Church do in this case? She sent priests, bishops, religious men and women, brothers of the Christian schools—brothers who were dedicated to teaching the people, so that slowly, surely, those who did not believe in Our Lord Jesus Christ, would be converted to the Church, would be transformed into Christians, even at the price of the blood of those preachers.

How many of these missionaries sent by the Church during the course of centuries have been massacred, massacred because they said that Our Lord Jesus Christ should be the King of people, King of society? These missionaries the Church has raised to Her altars and has considered them martyrs. In the same way the Church has raised to Her altars many saints, holy popes, holy bishops, holy priests, religious men and women, fathers of families, mothers of families, kings, queens, the poor. So did the Church show the example of these persons who had worked—each one in Her midst, who had worked in the course of their lives to sanctify themselves by the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ and to establish His reign in souls. All these kings and queens who have been canonized give us an extraordinary example which we would do well to adopt in our days.

How proud we could be to have in our day examples of kings and queens who would live like saints! What examples this would mean for the whole world! And that posture was conserved by the Church until the times of Pius XII.

But, unfortunately, we must recognize that something has changed in the Church. Of course, when I say the Church I am conscious of the fact that the Church cannot change, because the Church will always be eternal, holy, universal, catholic and apostolic. So that, when I speak of the Church, it is not realized or taken into account that I do not wish to attack the Church. I have an immense veneration for the Church and I think that I continue always working for the Church, as I did in the times of Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII.

But we cannot help recognizing that something important has changed in the Church.

If we go back to the first causes of the actual situation, if we look for the first author of these changes, we will meet the first enemy, the great enemy of Our Lord Jesus Christ, His sworn enemy—Satan himself. The devil always fought against Our Lord Jesus Christ and he could have thought he triumphed at the moment of the Crucifixion, at the moment of Calvary but there he was also defeated, for which reason he went on attacking the Mystical Body of Christ, the Holy Catholic Church, and then, from the beginning, and for three centuries, there were thousands and thousands of martyred Christians who gave testimony of the Faith—of their faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Then came the heresies, the schisms, the attacks against the Faith, the divisions brought to life by the devil and so, disgracefully, millions of Christians separated themselves from the Church. Satan also invented false religions which made the work of the missions difficult by making impossible the conversion of entire nations. That was the work of the devil for fifteen centuries, we can say, until the moment of the French Revolution.

Until that time the devil worked as an enemy of the Church, to destroy the Church from without and so he was able to take entire nations away from the Kingdom of Our Lord Jesus Christ and bring them to the gates of hell. Afterwards, to be more sure in his attacks on the Church, which was defended by her children and governed by those who were called lieutenants of Our Lord Jesus Christ by the Catholic princes, Satan attacked those same governments of the Catholic states and unleashed a persecution against those Catholic states which resulted in their no longer being Catholic states. The atheistic states, the states that did not profess any religion, persecuted the Catholic Church, which was then attacked by the same lay-states which had become anti-Catholic states. This constituted a considerable success for Satan within those states, those universities, those schools in which he formed generations imbued with liberalism, modernism, atheism, so that the moment arrived for Satan to take over those states. In the end, all Catholic homes allowed themselves to be penetrated by this climate.

Pope St. Pius X says in his first Encyclical of 1904:
and St. Pius X designates the places where the enemy is found: the enemy is in the seminaries, the enemy has infiltrated the seminaries, among the professors of the seminaries. This is clear! It is St. Pius X himself who says so!

Fifty years before this text from St. Pius X, Pope Pius IX showed the bishops the plan of the secret society and asked that the acts of the Italian secret societies be published. In these documents can be read:
Fifty years later this satanic plan is realized, according to the same words of St. Pius X, and since then, since fifty years ago, in the fifty years following, not only secret societies revealed this plan and this acitivity, but even the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima and at LaSalette predicted that one day the enemy would mount to the highest positions in the Church. This means something very grave: that perhaps there will be no need to climb as high as the Holy Father but to the positions in command in the Church.


Several hours would be needed to be able to show you how the liberals dominated during the course of Vatican II. So that you can know this exactly, for yourselves, it seems opportune for me to advise you read a book by Fr. Ralph Wiltgen, The Rhine Flows into the Tiber, which was originally written in English and was then translated into other languages, and where it is impartially shown, because its author was not, properly speaking, a traditionalist, the image of the battle which developed in the Council between the liberals and some conservatives who could still speak.

We cannot forget that Pope John XXIII expressly asked the Cardinals of the Roman Curia, who were without doubt the most traditional, not to intervene in the discussions of the Council. In fact, even though the Roman Cardinals integrated the commissions they no longer spoke. This was a very hard blow for the conservative groups who were keeping themselves faithful to the tradition of the Catholic Church, who were not innovators, who were not modernists.

We met in a small group after the second year of the Council: Monseigneur Sigaud, Monseigneur Corli (Bishop of Gaeta), Monseigneur Castro Meyer (Bishop of Campos), and I, and we began to work so that we would be able to unite bishops who could oppose themselves to this great danger which was presenting itself throughout the Church. There were never more than two hundred and fifty of us.

I would like to give you just one example of what the Council was: We did everything possible so that Vatican Council II would condemn Communism. Being a pastoral council (we should not forget that Vatican II was a pastoral council), that is to say, a council which has as its principal preoccupation the salvation of souls, which has as its object the destruction of the errors that menace souls, it was necessary, without doubt that this Council should be opposed to the greatest danger presenting itself in this age, as is Communism—a danger which extends itself throughout the world.

This Council, where 2,500 bishops responsible for the Catholic Church were meeting was not capable of formally condemning Communism.


In the first place, we went to see Cardinal Beran, who at that moment was Archbishop of Prague. Cardinal Beran said,

He finally signed, and we promised him that if no other bishop signed the declaration, we would return his signature. Then we approached Cardinal Slypyi who lived in the Vatican itself, behind the sacristy at St. Peter's. When we met him and presented him with the document, he said,
Lastly, we went to see Cardinal Wyszynski, and not finding him in his rooms I spoke to him on the telephone. Cardinal Wyszynski said to me,
We saw ourselves obliged to return Cardinal Beran's (Archbishop of Prague) signature. This is the true story of this document on the condemnation of Communism which was never approved by the Council. This example alone shows what Vatican II was, a Council in which 2,500 Fathers were gathered together which did not confront Communism, the major enemy of God, of the Church, of all spiritual principles. A Council which acts in this manner condemns itself.

I'm not going to insist any more about all those doings of the Council, of that pastoral Council which produced fruits which were, without a doubt, disastrous. After the Council, the liberals who had triumphed completely during it, occupied all the commissions that were in charge of bringing forth the proclaimed reforms. All the persons who directed these commissions, which were those in charge of putting everything into practice, all the congregations were in the hands of the modernists and the liberals. Even now, we can say, generally, that the Roman Congregations are in the hands of the modernists and the liberals who have succeeded those who have died.

Having shown what my attitude was, I return then to the questions I asked at the beginning of this conference. Are you amazed that someone condemns us? Are you amazed that the authorities of the Church persecute us, me in particular, who together with Monseignor Siguad and Monseignor Carli were, in a way, inside the Council, the spearpoint, of Catholic tradition and to the fidelity of the Church of always, of fidelity to the Church? Now that the chiefs of the Roman Congregations are those liberals who triumphed at the Council, it is evident that they will have as their objective the persecution of all traditionalists.

Of me, for example, who have formed a seminary which has been approved in the regular manner by the bishop of the diocese of the place and which has been constituted in agreement with all the canonical rules. The fact that the seminary should have been developed has disquieted them and they have prepared a kind of plot against it and against the Society which I have founded; a plot, definitely against us, to accomplish the suppression of the tradition of the Church. I don't think this can surprise anyone. We can affirm that they don't have enemies on the left, they only have enemies on the right. Time goes by and I would not like to tire you.

If I were to give you all the details of this plot and of the form in which the condemnation of my seminary and of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X was arrived at, you would be astounded. I give you just one detail: after the visit which took place at the Seminary at Ecône, Switzerland, by two monsignors sent from Rome, I was invited to that city by three Cardinals to give some complementary information. This meeting to which I was invited, did not constitute in any way an ecclesiastical court. It can be said that it was simply a visit in courtesy.

At the beginning of the interview, present at which were Cardinal Garrone, Cardinal Wright and the Spanish Cardinal Tabera, Cardinal Garrone asked me, "Monseigneur, will you permit us to record this conversation?" I told him that they could record it on the condition that they would afterwards give me a copy of same. He said, "Yes, of course, we will give it to you."

Nevertheless, having finished the conference, when I asked them for the copy of the conversation, they denied it to me. A second example that shows what this interview with the Roman Cardinals was: wanting to know who had named those Cardinals to interview me, if they constituted a commission, if it had to do with a particular initiative or was something that the Pope had ordered—and that I didn't know anything about, had no document, no official note and never had anything like it been done at the Vatican. I directed myself to Cardinal Staffa, who was the President of the Apostolic Assignment of the Roman Tribunal, and there I presented a recourse of complaint. I paid the fees which are demanded in the Roman Tribunal, so that I could present a complaint and I was given a receipt.

Once I did this, Cardinal Villot, who was at that time the Secretary of State, wrote a letter by his hand and in his own handwriting, to Cardinal Staffa, forbidding him to give me any document and ordering him to close the process immediately. In this way, we can see how the executive power injected itself into the sphere of the judicial power. Something which had never happened in the Church and it kept Cardinal Staffa from passing judgment on my complaint. In such a way that the Society, my seminaries and I, myself, were condemned without due process, without judgment, without documents and without being able to relate this condemnation to the visit of the two monsignors to Ecône.

I myself had the opportunity to tell Pope John Paul II (I had already told Pope Paul VI) that the form in which I had been condemned was worse than that used by the Soviets: at least they establish the farce of a tribunal; in my case, even that wasn't allowed. In fact, I should close my seminaries, immediately expel my seminarians who were at their studies in the middle of the year, and then dismiss all the teachers. You understand that a situation like this one can only be attributed to the occupation of the Church—the occupation of the Church by modernism which persecutes the traditionalists.

Remember the story of Cardinal Mindszenty? The way in which that Cardinal was treated by the Vatican can be considered ignoble. Cardinal Mindszenty, the hero of his people, who wanted to remain for many years in the selfsame Hungary, shut up in the United States Embassy to be near his people, was treated worse by the Roman Congregations, the Roman Curia, than he had been by the Soviets. Cardinal Slypyi is another example. He himself told me,
One more example: Cardinal Wysznski. When he went into Rome he was watched, without being able to circulate freely around the city. All of this shows an absolutely ignoble persecution. Why? Because these three Cardinals were traditionalists. Then, when they tell us, "You should obey," we answer them,
What Pope Paul VI entitled the "auto-destruction" of the Church is nothing else than what the self-same bishops and priests are realizing within the Catholic Church. I do not want to contribute to the destruction of the Church!

What I have just finished telling you is sad, but the Cardinals who are actually in Rome, whose names you certainly know, continue in this new policy, this new attitude of the Church, contrary to the tradition of Christ. Be it through the liturgy, through teaching, through the catechism, through the general policy of the Church before states and civil societies, a completely new orientation has been imposed. Everything has changed in the Church.

In the liturgy it is very clear. All our sacraments have been overthrown and subverted, all the old books have been suppressed and replaced by new books. This is not treating of a reform like that of St. Pius V, which had as its objective to remove from the Mass the additions made during the years which were precisely not in agreement with Tradition. The reform of St. Pius X had the same sense: elements were removed which had been acquired in preceding years which were not very conformed to Tradition, so as to return to that Tradition. But here one treats of the suppression of Tradition, of a new concept of the Mass, a concept which is more Protestant than Catholic, which was accomplished through the presence of six Protestant pastors who were called to transform our Mass.

It's a new thing in the treatment of the Mass, of the Holy Mass of always: to call six pastors so that they came to change it. What could these Protestants say when they were asked: "What would you like us to change in the Mass?" but to align our liturgy with the Protestant liturgy. This is the sense of the dialogue which is so much spoken of, a very grave attitude which responds to a general principle, to consider the religion of others as true as ours. Consequently, to consider that the Catholic religion is not the only religion through which one can be saved, the only divine religion, founded by God, founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ, with a perfectly different orientation from the others—it is inconceivable!

The Church itself has asked the states to not be Catholic states any more, to suppress the first articles of their constitutions, which say: 'The Catholic religion is the only religion recognized by the State." It is the Holy See itself which has asked this of the different states and it is because of this that there are no more Catholic states. That is finished. Because the Holy See desires that all religions be recognized equally in all the states, that all religions be equal. This is a completely new orientation for the Church. Never has the Church accepted, never has the Church taken this stand. The Church has never accepted that Our Lord Jesus Christ be put on an equal footing with Buddha, Luther and all those founders of false religions.

From the political point of view, you know well, you know perfectly, in almost the whole world, the Episcopates positively favor the Communist revolution and socialism.

In France, the election of Mitterand was owed to a large degree to the efforts of the bishops and priests who asked the faithful to vote in socialism. Result: we have four Communist ministers and this with the support of bishops and clerics. It's unimaginable! Rome did not intervene to prevent this socialist government from taking hold in France. A government, that is, in its deeds, militantly atheistic and which will monopolize all the teaching and which, consequently, will have all the Catholic schools in its hands.

When I had the opportunity to travel to Mexico last January, the Mexican Episcopate published a document which expressly approved of the revolution in El Salvador, to the point of asking that the Mexican Catholics contribute—be it with arms to go and fight against the government, be it with money to help the revolution. Where are we going? What Church is this? They tell us: "You disobey!" But, should we obey? Could it be that these bishops represent the Church? Without a doubt, there are still good bishops and these bishops are persecuted. You have an example in your homeland—Monsignor Tortolo, who never became Cardinal and who could well have been the Archbishop of Buenos Aires. The case of Monsignor Morcillo, Archbishop of Madrid, whom I know very well, consitutes another example. Monsignor Morcillo was never a Cardinal. They used to tell him, "You can't be a Cardinal because the primary diocese in Spain is the diocese of Toledo, therefore being a Cardinal corresponds only to the Bishop of Toledo." Immediately after the death of Monsignor Morcillo, Monsignor Tarancon who was the Archbishop of Madrid, was raised to the cardinalate. All the secretaries of the Council were named Cardinal, but Monsignor Morcillo, also a secretary, never was.

Cardinal Siri, who was President of the Italian Episcopal Conference was stripped of his office only one month after the election of Paul VI. We have to say that there are enemies of the Church who have occupied the Church. The Church is occupied!

You know Cardinal Pironio very well. A Cardinal who, having the ideas and attitudes he does, was named President of the Congregation for Religious. Another example, Cardinal Knox. A Cardinal who is, in fact, sacrilegious. During the Eucharistic Congress at Melbourne (at that moment I was in Australia, although I did not assist at the Congress), the so-called "Kamburu Mass" took place. What is a "Kamburu Mass"? He made the primitive population who live in the interior in Australia come. Men dressed in a manner you can just imagine, who danced on the platform which had been prepared for the Mass, next to the altar; they danced their primitive dances while the words of Consecration were being pronounced. What this man did is a sacrilege, and this man was named Prefect of the Congregation of Rites. What can this man do before such a Congregation?

Cardinal Baggio, for example, who was Apostolic Nuncio in Chile, and had to abandon the country for reasons not very favorable to him (you have only to ask the government of Chile what those reasons were), it's he who is now in charge of the naming of bishops!

Cardinal Casaroli, actual Secretary of State, can be found on the list of the Masonic Lodge P2 which is published by the newspapers. I'm not the one who says so, it's the Italian newspapers.

How can it be conceived that the Church continue its work of sanctification by means of those men? While they are at the head of the Church, we traditionalists will always be persecuted, and the Church will continue its auto-destruction.

I conclude. On our part, we have already chosen and we will not change that choice. We want to follow the Church that has always been. We want to remain faithful to the 250 popes who have defended Tradition and the Catholic Faith. We want to continue the priesthood in the Church and it is for that reason that we will continue to ordain priests in spite of the prohibition from Rome. We want to ordain true priests so that they can continue praying the true Mass, throughout the world and the length of history. This is indispensable.

All those liturgical reforms have been made by that evil spirit of ecumenism, of false ecumenism. It is because of this that the Faith has disappeared and that there are no longer any vocations. I have had the joy of already ordaining more than one hundred young priests, members of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X.

In October, we will have 270 seminarians, seminarians who belong to the five seminaries which have been founded in only ten years. You know that we have actually begun the work of a seminary here, in the Argentine Republic, forty kilometers from Buenos Aires, the La Reja neighborhood, where we already have twenty vocations, without counting the seminarians who, having completed their year of spirituality in the Argentine seminary, are now continuing their studies at Ecône, at Albano, or those having a monastic vocation are following it at Bedoin and San Michel-en-Brenne, France.

This [Argentine] seminary is under the particular care of Reverend Father Michel Faure and its director is Father Morello. We want to build a seminary capable of sheltering 120 seminarians, who will come from all the countries of Spanish America, to continue that priesthood of which I am speaking to you, to continue the Catholic Faith in these lands. Where will your children go if they no longer have Catholic schools? Because in the Catholic schools that actually exist, they are taught principles contrary to the Faith.





[Emphasis - The Catacombs]