Is this the best way the SSPX can sum up a man such as Archbishop Lefebvre? 'A man of experience in missionary lands? How very sad.
The SSPX more and more appears to use the Archbishop as a prop, a mascot for their existence. But their direction is so far removed from what he stated and acted upon, it is truly a travesty. If you peruse the SSPX sites, if they do quote the Archbishop, they favor his quotes on the Mass. But they do not quote him saying 'Stay away from Rome until it converts.'
Who are now, in this day, his true sons?
Here is an article of Fr. Hewko's from 2016:
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ARCHBISHOP LEFEBVRE DIED FIGHTING WILL HIS SONS?
"The problem remains grave, very grave. We absolutely must not minimize it! This is how we must reply to the laypeople who ask such questions as, 'When will the crisis come to an end? Are we getting anywhere? Isn't there a way of getting permission for our liturgy, for our sacraments?'"
Certainly, the question of the liturgy and the sacraments is important, but it is not the most important. The most important question is the question of the Faith! This is unresolved in Rome. For us, it is resolved. We have the Faith of all time, the Faith of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, of the Catechism of St. Pius X, hence the Faith of the Church, of all the Church Councils, of all the Popes prior to Vatican II. Now the official Church is persevering, we might say pertinaciously, in the false ideas and grave errors of Vatican II, that much is clear!" [Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Address to his priests seven months before his death, 1990]
How well Abp. Lefebvre understood the Combat for the Faith! The Holy Faith towers over all canonical questions, it is the main purpose for the authority given by Christ to the Popes, Bishops, and clergy. It is this Sacred Deposit that He commanded to be preached to the whole world, to be guarded unchanged, defended with martyrs' blood, and stands victorious over all false religions. Christ is God, Christ is King, He is the Eternal High Priest. This is the foundation of the Catholic Faith!
Abp. Lefebvre so often said that the Masonic ideas triumphing with the French Revolution (and its sister, the American Revolution), were the overthrow of Christ's Kingship in society, which was ignited by the Lodges and spread throughout the world. Our Combat now, is defined by the Popes who led the war against these ideas that conspire against God, and practically summarized in the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Hence, in the name of "My rights, My rights, My rights!" abortion, divorce, contraception, euthanasia, sodomy, pornography, etc., are legalized by civil authorities who have rejected Christ's Kingship and loudly proclaim "We will not have THIS MAN reign over us!" As St. Pius X said, this is legalized apostasy.
Catholics, faithful to Tradition stand with Abp. Lefebvre, on the shoulders of the Popes of the last two centuries who made war against the ideas of Liberalism, Modernism, Modern Democracy, the false "rights" & "freedoms" that corrupt the young and dissolve society and all morals. Dissolve Doctrine, you dissolve morals. Dissolve morals, and society crashes to the ground!
Vatican II was the Masonic triumph of their heresies within the Church. They have managed to swindle in their man-made Conciliar Church, with new sacraments, new theology, new priests, new Mass, new catechisms, new Bible, new "canonizations", new "miracles", new everything! Our Combat is against this hijacking of our Holy Roman Catholic Church! The great Declaration of 1974, written by Abp. Lefebvre, still stands as the greatest proclamation of the Faith since Vatican II. This Declaration defines precisely what the Catholic Resistance is all about. Vatican II, its New Mass and reforms must be categorically rejected. Vatican II, now within the Society of St. Pius X, must be categorically rejected. There is no possible way to mix the Revolution of Freemasonry with the Revolution of the Gospel. No mixture of Light and Darkness; Truth and Error; oil and water; Christ and Satan! Not possible! It is not possible!
Yet, this has always been the dream of Liberal Catholicism, as Pope Pius IX lamented, and proves to be a greater threat to the Church than any Roman Emperor, atheist, or satanist! "The enemy is in the very bosom of the Church!" said St. Pius X. This same enemy is in the very bosom of the seminaries, district houses and priories of the Conciliar-SSPX!
When young priests and seminarians come out from the classrooms of Winona cheerleading the Agreement with Modernist Rome and insisting on obedience to Modernist Popes, because "we are in an abnormal situation" and so we must "approve and determine a canonical normalization" (cf. General Chapter Statement, July 14, 2012) with Modernists, of whom Abp. Lefebvre said to stay far away! Then we indeed have a new War on our hands! Is this not the ongoing "diabolical disorientation" Our Lady of Fatima foretold? "It is, therefore, a strict duty for every priest (and all faithful) wanting to remain Catholic, to separate themselves from this Conciliar Church, for as long as it does not return to the Tradition of the Magisterium of the Church and the Catholic Faith!" said the wise Archbishop (Spiritual Journey, p. 13).
What would one be obliged to think of a Pro-Life Group, who's leaders thought that it was time to stop fighting and adopt a "new approach", a "new attitude" towards Planned Parenthood, no longer the offensive "bulldozer approach"? What if this Pro-Life Group proclaimed in official documents that it seeks an Agreement with Planned Parenthood, even going so far as to literally bind itself under six conditions to such an Agreement, and counted it an honor to receive "jurisdictional privileges" and expressed profound gratitude to Planned Parenthood for giving crumbs of recognition to it? Furthermore, what would one think if this Group, claiming to be Pro-Life, had adopted certain principles saying words like "We declare,...We acknowledge,....We accept", all signed in a new Declaration, agreeing with some cases of abortion, but, of course, only those seen in the "light of Tradition" and "in exceptional cases"?
What if members of this Pro-Life Group spoke up saying that this was wrong, it goes against the very nature of any pro-life position, it is betrayal and compromise? Then, what if those members were marginalized or even expelled for disobedience, rebellion, disrespect to the president of the Group and for not trusting his "grace of state"? What about those who stayed in, choosing to remain silent and " obedient"?
It goes without saying, such a president betrayed the cause, compromised with its sworn enemy, has surrendered, and should be removed along with his co-traitors! There can never be peace, cooperation, or any Agreement whatsoever, between the blood-dripping murderers in Planned Parenthood and ProLife Groups, impossible!
Now, every comparison limps, except in the point being made in the given comparison. But this comparison doesn't limp too much, because admittedly, Planned Parenthood is a murderous institution, but a murderer of bodies. Let it be said, loud and clear, that an institution given to the murder of eternal souls far outweighs in gravity any institution restricted to killing temporary bodies! The Conciliar Church attacks Our Lord as King, in its very founding documents! It dissolves the Faith and "is poisoned through and through!" It is entirely based on a "total perversion of the spirit, a whole new philosophy founded upon subjectivism" and represents a "schismatic Church". "...It is very serious! A total perversion!...It is truly frightening." (--Abp. Lefebvre). The Second Vatican Council, besides not being infallible, non dogmatic, and, in fact, the "worst disaster in the history of the Church" (--Abp. Lefebvre), kills immortal souls! It leads to eternal damnation! It dissolves the True Faith and replaces it with another; humanist, man-centered, and apostate. This makes the Conciliar Church far more wicked than Planned Parenthood, and in this light, what the leaders of the Society of St. Pius X are doing, has become the blind leading the blind, right into the jaws of the Conciliar Church!
With Doctrine compromised, morals are soon compromised. "When Doctrine is compromised, all is lost! The situation cannot be any more remedied," as Bp. Freppel foresaw in the 19th Century. This is the sad reality. This is the nightmare turned non-fiction. This is where the new Doctrine and orientation of the Conciliar-SSPX is going! The only recovery will be a 180° turn and a public rejection, condemnation and denouncing of the documents that compromised the Faith! These documents, available for all to see for those who foolishly insist, saying: "Nothing's changed",... "Everything is the same" are official, they were issued and signed by the authorities of the Society of St. Pius X, and they betray the Fight that Abp. Lefebvre was all about. But far worse, they betray Christ the King, His Church's Magisterium and His Sacraments! Anyone, 500 years from now, reading the General Chapter Statement of July 14, 2012, the attached 6 Conditions, the Doctrinal Declaration of April 15, 2012, and all the weasel language justifying compromise in the name of "prudence", will cringe in horror at their willingness to betray Christ the King for badges of recognition from smiling Modernists, set to destroy souls.
"Just as Israel of the Old Testament had a troubled history because of continuous infidelities towards God, which were often the works of its leaders and its Levites, so does the Church Militant in this world know without end, periods of trial on account of the infidelity of its clerics and their compromises with the world.
" The higher they come from, the more scandals provoke disasters. Certainly, the Church herself guards its sanctity and its sources of sanctification, but the control of its institutions by unfaithful popes and apostate bishops ruins the faith of the faithful and the clergy, sterilizes the instruments of grace, and favors the assault of all the powers of Hell, which seem to triumph!
"This apostasy makes its members adulterers, schismatics, opposed to all Tradition, separated from the past of the Church, and thus separated from the Church of today, in the measure that it remains faithful to the Church of Our Lord. Everyone who remains faithful to the True Church is the object of savage and continuous persecution." (Spiritual Journey, by Abp. Lefebvre, p. 54-55).
Granted, as Roman Catholics, we long for the day when we can see the Church in her pre-Vatican II splendor, with a good, doctrinally sound Pope, bishops who defend the flock from the wolves, the Tridentine Mass as the only "Ordinary Form" and happily obedient faithful. But, since "Satan's masterstroke was to sow disobedience to all Tradition through obedience," such happy obedience would be sinful when given to leaders destroying the Faith by adherence to Vatican II and the New Mass. This goes for all clergy who, in any way, accept the Council or minimize the poison of the New Mass. This goes for all the dozen traditional groups who have sought Agreements with Modernist Rome and signed the appropriate documents, even if they were promised the Latin Mass, the right to preach against Modernism and have their seminaries,...or even a bishop!
This was what Abp. Lefebvre was offered. He rightly refused. He saw the problem is not lace surplices, incense and even the Mass itself! But the real Fight of the Catholic Resistance is the Faith! Again and again, it is the Faith! The Faith! The Faith!
"When someone asks us if we know when there will be an accord with Rome, my answer is simple: when Rome re-crowns Our Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot be in accord with those who uncrown Our Lord! The day when they recognize once again Our Lord as King of all people and nations, it will not be us with whom they have rejoined, but the Catholic Church, in which we live!" (Abp. Lefebvre at Flavigny, France, Dec. 1988; Fideliter no. 68, p.16.).
It's time for the clergy, faithful and the youth to rise to the Fight already advancing upon us, to stop burying their heads in denials, vanities and empty wishes. This is a time of war, of combat, of great self-sacrifice! and for those who find comfort in their missions, schools and priories, don't forget, the Church Triumphant belongs only in Heaven! As long as we're on this earth, we must fight and defend the Church Militant! That Battle now, is the Catholic Resistance. What's the Resistance? It is all Catholics fighting to maintain the Faith of Tradition, of the Popes before Vatican II and the clear line of Abp. Lefebvre! Any cleric claiming to be with the Resistance and muddles the lines of opposition between Vatican II and the New Mass is a wolf. Stay away. A sham "Resistance" fits in the enemy's plans, as did the "Conservatives" after Vatican II. Abp. Lefebvre was a gift for the Church (foretold 300 yrs. before, by Our Lady in Quito, Ecuador), and we simply have to hold his line until the crisis is passed. This means his structure and organization (insofar as possible), seminaries, priests responding to the needs of the faithful, encouraging priestly and religious vocations, the crusade for the large family and his publicly "resisting Peter to his face", for his Modernism. "Neither Modernist nor schismatic [viz. sedevacantist]!" This Combat can never change! And the Holy Roman Catholic Church is in battle as long as She is on this earth. She's not called the Church Militant for nothing! ...Neither are you Confirmed with Chrism and slapped as a warning, to watch our Holy Mother die! "Walk whilst you have the light, lest the darkness overtake you!" (St. Jn. 12:35). "I hold that WE ARE IN THE CHURCH and that WE ARE THE TRUE SONS OF THE CHURCH, and the others are not. They are not, because Liberalism is not a son of the Church. Liberalism is against the Church, Liberalism operates to destroy the Church, in that sense they cannot claim to be sons of the Church... some are prepared to sacrifice the Fight for the Faith by saying: 'Let us first reenter the Church! Let us first do everything to integrate into the official, public structure of the Church! Let's be silent about dogmatic issues. Let us be silent about the malice of the New Mass. Let's keep quiet over the issues of Religious Liberty, Human Rights, Ecumenism. And, once we are inside the Church, then we will be able to do this! We will be able to achieve that!'
"That's ABSOLUTELY FALSE! You don't enter a structure, under superiors, by claiming that you will overthrow everything, once inside, whereas they have all the means to suppress us! They have all the authority.
" What matters first and foremost is TO MAINTAIN THE CATHOLIC FAITH! THAT'S WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING FOR! So the canonical issue, this purely public and exterior issue in the Church, is secondary! What matters is to stay within the Church,...inside the Church, in other words, IN THE CATHOLIC FAITH OF ALL TIME, in the true priesthood, in the true Mass, in the true sacraments, and the same catechism, with the same Bible. THAT'S WHAT MATTERS TO US! THAT'S WHAT THE CHURCH IS! Public recognition is a secondary issue. Thus, WE MUST NOT SEEK WHAT IS SECONDARY BY LOSING WHAT IS PRIMARY, BY LOSING WHAT IS THE PRIMARY GOAL OF OUR FIGHT!
"...We cannot place ourselves under an authority who has liberal ideas and who, little by little, would condemn us, by force of circumstances, to accept these Liberal ideas and all the consequences of these Liberal ideas which are the New Mass, the changes in the Liturgy, the changes in the Bible, the changes in the catechism, and all these changes...'But,' you may say, 'some have fought against the New Catechism!' It is simply to put the brakes on, because the changes were going so fast, that even they had to slow down a bit. The consequences of their own principles scare them. Thus, they put the brakes on, at times, but they nevertheless continue to want to keep their Liberal ideas. Changing their Liberal ideas is out of the question!" (Abp. Lefebvre, Spiritual Conference at Econe, Dec. 21, 1984). [Emphasis mine].
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