Archbishop Lefebvre publically admitted that slowly, very slowly he began to be anxious as to whether or not the Pope was the Pope in 1986 before the Assisi travesty. Perhaps this was a political ploy to scare jp2 from going through with it. Regardless, I dare say the good Archbishop was anxious for a considerable amount of time before then. And when the false pope went through with the Assisi abomination which came straight from the pit Hell, for whatever reason he remained silent on the issue. It has been 26 years since the good archbishop slowly, very slowly became anxious before the Assisi fiasco and there had been some anxiousness for 20 years, at least, prior, the question now is, are we to be perpetually anxious or do we publically come to the obvious conclusion? He knew, better than us, that a bishop could not consecrate other bishop’s against the will of a validly reigning Pontiff. A good Bishop would never do such a thing unless there was no validly reigning Pontiff. Hobbleday would be the first to tell you that this cannot be done as this would be a schismatic act according to the pre-Vatican 2 theologians and that the those bishops would not have jurisdiction over us. I’ll quote Hobbleday (I’m using his blog name as everyone else does though he insists on using my real name on the blog, I guess as another one of his underhanded insults to go with letting me know that he is ignoring me while not really ignoring me) to be clear,
“The reality is that the clerici acephali, the episcopi vagantes, of our day may have ostensibly imperiled their salvation in risking the possibility of incurring serious censures and scandal, as well as committing sacrilege and mortal sin in having attained to the sacred Episcopacy contrary to the norms of Canon Law (cf. Can. 953: “Consecratio episcopalis reservatur Romano Pontifice ita ut nulli Episcopo liceat quemquam consecrare in Episcopum, nisi prius constet de pontificio mandato;” Can. 2370: “Episcopus aliquem consecrans in Episcopum, Episcopi vel, loco Episcoporum, pres-byteri assistentes, et qui consecrationem recipit sine apostolico mandato contra praescriptum Can. 953, ipso iure suspensi sunt, donec Sedes Apostolica eos dispensaverit"), for they have been consecrated as Bishops, and have themselves consecrated other Bishops, without Apostolic mandate.”
So Lefebvre imperiled his soul and the souls of his followers by consecrating bishops against the expressed wish (according to the official SSPX party line) of a validly reigning Pope. Sedevantists use the supplied jurisdiction in its real sense because there is no Pope to mandate the consecrations, and because the Church would die with the last Catholic Bishop, for all practical and visible purposes, or at least be destroyed enough to warrant Lefebvre’s blatant disobedience against he who the SSPX claim was undeniably, to the extent that disagreeing with their position is considered, according to them, to be absurd, a validly reigning Pope. I say once again, that a whole generation (40 years) of good willed Catholics have been taught, by the SSPX, through their words and actions, the schismatic attitude of consistently disobeying a validly reigning Pope regarding all he has bound on the Church and against his expressed wish that Lefebvre not consecrate more Bishops. Such an attitude toward a validly reigning Pope is not the Catholic attitude. But he was not a validly reigning Pope you see. This fact clarifies and justifies his defiance. For it was not a Pope that he was defying. But since the SSPX insists on the “absolutely undeniable fact” that the v2 claimants are validly reigning Popes we have the anti-sedevacantists who are indeed schismatic in their actions against the one they deem to be an undeniable reigning Pontiff whereas the sedevacantists disobey no one. If I get kicked off the blog for stating the fact that it is a schismatic attitude to constantly disobey a validly reigning Pontiff for over 40 years on all he has bound on the Church and to disobey his expressed command not to consecrate Bishops I will consider it an honor because I will have been kicked off for stating Catholic truth. I’ll say it again. Consistently disobeying 4 consecutive Popes for over 40 years is a schismatic attitude.
Granted it has been done for Catholic reasons. They are holding fast to the faith and practicing it as is their right. Even if they use the modernized version (1961/2) of the Mass which was a go between the true Mass of Christ codified by Pius V and the anti-Mass of Paul 6. Even if they take it upon themselves to decide on annulments. Even if they in effect set themselves up to be a higher authority than the one they insist is a validly reigning Pope and they insist on this to the point that they scare the more feeble of SVs into thinking they are the ones putting their souls in peril for not believing a public heretic can be Pope. If they could have the courage to publically admit this fact, all the good-willed Catholics would be a much more powerful force to be reckoned with in the Novus Ordo world of absurdity. We would be a powerful force that would be more able to convert the Nordites of goodwill which I believe are many. Not all of us have computers and all the facts available at our fingertips. Many work hard all day and go home and entertain themselves the rest of their waking hours in a state of true and quite possibly inculpable ignorance. I have kind of just realized this. I was fooled all through the nineties even when I had this technology in my hands. But the more I studied the more I learned. Others don’t have this chance. But instead we fight amongst ourselves. We most willingly cast aspersions on one another making our ignorance and lack of charity manifest beyond all denial (we knew them by their love for one another). We even
look for the opportunity to slam one another while souls rot in their desolation. Fellow SVs cannot raise legitimate objections to confusing questions without getting slammed and then they are the ones accused of not having charity. The writer below is not guilty of any of this, at least not in the past decade or so. He attends SSPX Masses. He tries to get them to see the light in a charitable way. But accepting the fact that a public heretic cannot be Pope takes them out of their comfort zone so they ignore it. In my opinion it is much more comfortable, if we desire comfort over truth (though the SVs ultimately have both), to disobey no one rather than disobey validly reigning Popes for almost one half a century. No?
http://strobertbellarmine.net/books/Concerning_A_SSPX_Dossier_on_Sedevacantism.pdf “The Society admits the possibility of discussion regarding whatever explanation it may advance with regard to the nature of John Paul II's authority.” (Sedevacantism: A False Solution to a Real Problem, Angelus Press, Kansas, 2003, p. 22) This is a step-by-step consideration and refutation of the little book by Fr. Dominique Boulet of the SSPX, entitled, Sedevacantism. It is presented in the spirit of fraternal charity, in acceptance of the invitation extended by the priests of the Italian District of the SSPX in 2003, to discuss the “problem of the Pope.” Our first task is to say what the sedevacantist thesis actually is. If we were to summarise Archbishop Lefebvre’s position, we could describe it as a minimalist approach to the mystery of this crisis. That is, he combined two principles:
1. We must obey God rather than men. It is licit to resist a superior who commands something sinful, because it is never lawful to sin for any reason.
2. We must not tempt God by taking extraordinary actions unless absolutely necessary. Thus St. Thomas More waited until after he was condemned to death before openly criticising the schismatic actions of Henry VIII. (And some traditionalists would doubtless have accused More of liberalism for this silence!)
If I were to define the sedevacantist thesis, I would also say that I agree that we must be minimalist, and thus be prepared to leave mysteries as mysteries if there are no clear answers, and we must be humble, and admit that we do not necessarily have the complete solution to every problem. Thus, to my mind the sedevacantist thesis consists essentially in denying the legitimacy of Paul VI when he promulgated the decrees of Vatican II (and therefore subsequently when he promulgated the Novus Ordo Missae also), and in denying the legitimacy of John Paul II from the beginning of his reign, but especially when he promulgated the 1983 Code. Benedict’s claim must be rejected because it is identified with the same difficulties as his immediate predecessors, and of course he has added his own enormities to those of his immediate predecessors, revealing an equally defective faith. 2
And these points because otherwise the Church is involved in things she could not possibly have been involved in, according to the teaching of the theologians; and because otherwise we must identify the Catholic Church with the Conciliar Church – or make her a kind of Jekyll-Hyde monster consisting of open Modernists and traditional Catholics – and thus destroy any sound understanding of her visible unity in Faith and Charity.
Archbishop Lefebvre saw the problem of the Pope, and without claiming to have solved it, he consistently referred to it over many years, and it was at bottom the reason that he went ahead with the consecrations in 1988. That is, he knew that traditional Catholics could not be left to depend upon the Conciliar Church for sacraments or for the true Faith. It seems to me that many later SSPX priests have, in their enthusiasm to combat what they see as the dangers of sedevacantism, forgotten the thoughts of the Archbishop. It was most refreshing to see the recent chapter meeting of the Fraternity choose to quote a text from the Archbishop which particularly highlighted the lack of identity between the Conciliar Church and the Catholic Church.1
1 This was written in 2006, and refers to the reaffirmation by the SSPX General Chapter of the famous 1976 Declaration of the Archbishop. 2 Archbishop Lefebvre, Reflections on Suspension a divinis, June 29, 1976.
We need to keep in view always that the founder of the SSPX famously declared, in 1976, “We are suspended a divinis by the Conciliar Church and for the Conciliar Church, to which we have no wish to belong. That Conciliar Church is a schismatic Church, because it breaks with the Catholic Church that has always been. It has its new dogmas, its new priesthood, its new institutions, its new worship, all already condemned by the Church in many a docuмent, official and definitive.... The Church that affirms such errors is at once schismatic and heretical. This Conciliar Church is, therefore, not Catholic. To whatever extent Pope, Bishops, priests, or faithful adhere to this new Church, they separate themselves from the Catholic Church....” 2 For the sake of simplicity each point of Fr. Boulet’s dossier is numbered and a response added. 1. Fr. Boulet lists some grave Conciliar scandals, and suggests: “Some of us may now wonder if, in view of such shocking events, Archbishop Lefebvre would have kept in 2004 the same position he had in 1979.” 3
He then quotes the Archbishop from 1979. Why does Fr. Boulet omit to quote the directly relevant text of Archbishop Lefebvre from 1986, in which the Archbishop openly speculated that he might adopt the sedevacantist thesis himself? Has he not seen it? This is the text in which Archbishop Lefebvre outlined his mature thought on the question of the status of the post-Vatican II Popes. It was delivered as a prepared speech on two occasions in early 1986, to American seminarians, and subsequently published in The Angelus, under the title, The Archbishop Speaks.
EVER SINCE the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, society has revolted more and more against God. The apostasy is growing year by year, and slowly, slowly, all society has been coming under the influence of the freemasonic principles of liberty and independence from God - no more law, no more authority, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion. At the beginning of the 20th century, Pius X warned that these errors were penetrating inside the Church, into the clergy. At Vatican II we saw a conspiracy between churchmen and freemasons, and now the Pope, Cardinals and nearly all Bishops accept man's independence of conscience, the principle of religious liberty and its consequence, the ecuмenism whereby all religions are good. This is absolutely against Jesus Christ Who taught us He is the door of heaven, and there is no other way to get into heaven.
For twenty years since the Council, we have waited for the Vatican to realize the error of its ways. The Society has waited for the Pope to realize that the result of these false principles is the self-destruction of the Church. However, we are bound to recognize that the situation is only getting worse, that the false ecuмenism is escalating, that since last year's Synod in particular the crisis is merely advancing faster and faster towards the total destruction of the Church.
Since the Council we have been seeing the situation get graver and graver, year by year, but the Synod was gravest of all because there they said, "We are continuing! Despite all difficulties, the Council was the work of the Holy Ghost, a second Pentecost. We must continue in the spirit of the Council. There will be no restrictions, no reprimands, no return to Tradition." So now we see them saying, "Let's go even faster!" Naturally, since there were no objections at the Synod to the spirit of the Council put into practice over 20 years, and since all agreed with the changes in the Church, then there is no reason not to continue even faster, and we are arriving at the total destruction of the Church!
The escalation of this Church-destroying ecuмenism is taking place in broad daylight. In Morocco last year the Pope told a crowd of Mohammedans that they pray to the same God as Catholics do. But it is not true. Mohammedans teach that to kill a Christian is good because he is an idolater, worshipping the man Jesus Christ as God. Also last year, in Togo, the Pope poured out on the ground a pagan sacrifice to the god of the animists or African 4 spirit-worshippers. Early this year, in India, he let some Hindu "priestess" mark him on the forehead with the sign of her sect!
Incredible! "All gods of the pagans are devils," says Scripture (Ps.95,5). How can the Pope receive the sign of the devil? Whatever god is not Jesus Christ is not the one and only true God. And most recently, the Pope has been into the ѕуηαgσgυє of the Jєωs in Rome. How can the Pope pray with the enemies of Jesus Christ? These Jєωs know and say and believe that they are the successors of the Jєωs that killed Jesus Christ, and they continue to fight against Jesus Christ everywhere in the world. At the end of the Pope's visit, the Jєωs sang a "hymn" that included the line "I believe with all my heart in the coming of the Messiah," meaning they refuse Jesus as the Messiah, and the Pope had given permission for this denial of Christ to be sung in his presence, and he listened, with head bowed! And the Holy See announces that in the near future he will visit Taize to pray with the Protestants, and he himself said in public at St. Paul Outside of the Walls that later this year he will hold a ceremony gathering all religions of the world together to pray for peace at Assisi in Italy, on the occasion of the Feast of Peace proclaimed by the United Nations due to take place on October 24.
Now all these facts are public, you have seen them in the newspapers and the media. What are we to think? What is the reaction of our Catholic Faith? That is what matters. It is not our personal feelings, a sort of impression or admission of some kind. It is a question of knowing what our Faith tells us, faced with these facts. Let me quote a few words - not my words - from Canon Naz's Dictionary of Canon Law, a wholly official and approved commentary on what has been the Catholic Church's body of law for nineteen centuries. On the subject of sharing in the worship of non-Catholics (after all, this is what we now see Pope and bishops doing), the Church says, in Canon 1258-1: "It is absolutely forbidden for Catholics to attend or take any active part in the worship of non-Catholics in any way whatsoever." On this Canon the quasi-official Naz Commentary says, and I quote, "A Catholic takes active part when he joins in heterodox; i.e., non-Catholic worship with the intention of honouring God by this means in the way non-Catholics do. It is forbidden to pray, to sing or to play the organ in a heretical or schismatic temple, in association with the people worshipping there, even if the words of the hymn or the song or the prayer are orthodox." The reason for this prohibition is that any participation in non-Catholic worship implies profession of a false religion and hence denial of the Catholic Faith. By such participation Catholics are presumed to be adhering to the beliefs of the non- Catholics, and that is why Canon 2316 declares them "suspect of heresy, and if they persevere, they are to be treated as being in reality heretics."
Now these recent acts of the Pope and bishops, with Protestants, animists and Jєωs, are they not an active participation in non-Catholic worship as explained by Canon Naz on Canon 1258-1? In which case, I cannot see how it is possible to say that the Pope is not suspect of heresy, and if he continues, he is a heretic, a public heretic. That is the teaching of the Church. 5
Now I don't know if the time has come to say that the Pope is a heretic; I don't know if it is the time to say that. You know, for some time many people, the sedevacantists, have been saying "there is no more Pope," but I think that for me it was not yet the time to say that, because it was not sure, it was not evident, it was very difficult to say that the Pope is a heretic, the Pope is apostate. But I recognize that slowly, very slowly, by the deeds and acts of the Pope himself we begin to be very anxious.
I am not inventing this situation; I do not want it. I would gladly give my life to bring it to an end, but this is the situation we face, unfolding before our eyes like a film in the cinema. I don't think it has ever happened in the history of the Church, the man seated in the chair of Peter partaking in the worship of false gods.
What conclusion must we draw in a few months if we are confronted by these repeated acts of partaking in false worship? I don't know. I wonder. But I think the Pope can do nothing worse than call together a meeting of all religions, when we know there is only one true religion and all other religions belong to the devil. So perhaps after this famous meeting of Assisi, perhaps we must say that the Pope is a heretic, is apostate. Now I don't wish yet to say it formally and solemnly, but it seems at first sight that it is impossible for a Pope to be publicly and formally heretical. Our Lord has promised to be with him, to keep his faith, to keep him in the Faith - how can he at the same time be a public heretic and virtually apostatise? So it is possible we may be obliged to believe this Pope is not Pope.
For twenty years, Msgr. de Castro-Mayer and I preferred to wait; we said it was more prudent and more in conformity with Providence to wait because it is so important, so tragic, when it is not just a bishop, archbishop or cardinal, but the man in the chair of Peter. It is so important, so grave, so sad, that we prefer to wait until Providence gives us such evidence, that it is no longer possible to refuse to say that the Pope is a heretic. So, to say that I think we are waiting for the famous meeting in Assisi, if God allows it! Maybe war will break out, and here I take the opportunity to congratulate America and its President on their resolute action in Libya against an enemy of all civilization. In Europe they are all afraid, afraid, afraid of the Communists. Why? Until the Communists occupy all Europe. But President Reagan's action may have delayed war by making the Communists afraid; we don't know, because they are fanatics and could start war any time just to take power.
Now some priests (even some priests in the Society) say that we Catholics need not worry about what is happening in the Vatican; we have the true sacraments, the true Mass, the true doctrine, so why worry about whether the Pope is a heretic or an impostor or whatever; it is of no importance to us. But I think that is not true. If any man is important in the Church, it is the Pope. He is the centre of the Church and has a great influence on all Catholics by his attitudes, his words and his acts. All men read in the newspapers the Pope's words and on television they see his travels. And so, slowly, slowly, many Catholics are losing the Catholic Faith by the scandal of the Pope's partaking in false religions. This ecuмenism is a scandal in the true sense of the word, an encouragement to sin. Catholics are losing faith in the Catholic Church. They think all religions are good because the Pope in this way befriends men of all religions. When the scandal comes from so high in the Church, from the 6 man in the chair of Peter and from almost all the bishops, then poor Catholics who are thrown back on their own resources and who do not know their Faith well enough to keep it despite all, or who do not have priests by their side to help them to keep the Faith, these Catholics are completely at a loss what to do. They are no longer practicing their Faith, or they give up praying, or they are losing the Faith altogether and are joining some sect or other. I ask, what people are keeping the Faith? Where are they? Where are they? And I ask even the Traditionalists!
For I think that many Traditional Catholics enjoy the traditions; they like the old Mass, they like the old sacraments, they like the old teaching of the Church, but they do not really believe in Jesus Christ as the one and only Saviour, God and Creator. That is the bad influence of all the modern errors coming through television and the media - they are so bad, so pagan, so opposed to Jesus Christ and the Catholic Faith that few people remain true Catholics wholly faithful to Jesus Christ. That is why we can't be indifferent to these scandalous events in Rome, we must judge them in the light of our Faith and help Catholics, traditional Catholics, to see that this bad example of the Pope is a great scandal, very dangerous for their souls.
It is very sad. Never in my life did I think I could be saying, the scandal of the Pope, but it is true. What can I do about it? I think we must pray, and pray, morning, noon and night and study our Catholic doctrine very deeply to stay true Catholics and keep the Faith.
Someone may say, I am on the way to saying the Pope is not Pope, in order to consecrate a bishop. That is not true. They are two different problems. Ever since the Council, year after year, I have been praying to God that Providence by the facts and the unfolding of events should show us what we must do. I pray for it to be clear beyond doubt, wholly evident. And I think that now we are in this time, I think that it is the answer of God. I would much prefer Providence to be showing us the Vatican returning to Tradition, but instead we see the Vatican plunging into darkness and error. And so it is sure that now it is not as difficult to see as it was one or two years ago, it is more clear and evident that they are no longer truly Catholic. No persecution or revolution in as these years since the Council, because today the Faith is being destroyed by men of the Church, by the Pope himself, by Cardinals, by bishops, priests and nuns. It is the wholesale, worldwide and radical destruction of the Faith.
Yet it is a great grace for us to live in this time. From before the destruction, we were chosen by God to continue the Catholic Church. Even if we are condemned by Rome, even if we are persecuted by the bishops, that is not important. What is important is to stay Catholic, to keep the grace we received at baptism, to save our souls. Nobody can say we are heretics or schismatics for believing as the Popes, Saints and Church of old believed for twenty centuries. It is a great grace of God to have been chosen to continue the Faith and the Church, but it is a great responsibility, and we must pray and remain very humble in order to be faithful to the grace that we receive.
You seminarians especially, future priests, must study the true Faith to become true 7 missionaries of Our Lord, even if you have to shed your blood, as the martyrs did in olden times. Then young girls would suffer heroic deaths rather than make one sacrifice or breathe one prayer to the pagan gods of ancient Rome, but now, no problem! You want me to say a prayer to your god? Sure! And so they are abandoning Jesus Christ and the true Faith in order to be friends with the enemies of the Church!
We refuse. Instead we resolve to follow the non-ecuмenical martyrs, the Saints. Tomorrow at Ridgefield the Church will have three more priests. That is very important. It is not a question of numbers, it is a question of quality, it is a question of true priests. Jesus Christ began with twelve apostles so we need not feel bad that we are so few. Our work is really nothing compared with the world's needs. But that is not our problem, it is God's problem. He asked us to work and to believe in Him and to have confidence in Jesus Christ and in the grace of Jesus Christ. Success lies in God's hands. You know we have much to suffer, many, many sufferings, even in the Society. But we must carry the Cross of Jesus Christ and with the courage and resolution He gives us, we must have a great hope that one day the kingdom of Jesus Christ will return to this world.3 Archbishop Lefebvre, An Address to Seminarians, March 30 and April 18, 1986, The Angelus, July 1986.
That is the carefully prepared and published thought of Archbishop Lefebvre on the “sedevacantist” position. There exists no other text of similar depth on the question. Indeed, there is no other text of comparable length – the Archbishop mentioned the possibility that the new Popes might be false Popes on numerous occasions, but when he did he generally refrained from any extensive comment, usually saying that they were doubtful and, for a brief period after John Paul II was elected and displayed good will towards traditionalists, appearing to rule out any such question. It seems odd, to say the least, to endeavour to reconstruct the Archbishop’s thought on this question from sparse and very brief comments made across decades, whilst ignoring the one text in which he expressed himself in extenso on the subject!
In 1984, in the wake of the promulgation of the heretical 1983 Code of canon Law, Archbishop Lefebvre had formed the judgement that John Paul II was in fact not a Catholic. The words of Archbishop Lefebvre were given by his biographer, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, in an interview published in the French magazine of the Society of Saint Pius X, marking the tenth anniversary of the episcopal consecrations of June 1988.
The current state of the papacy renders insignificant the difficulties over jurisdiction, disobedience and apostolicity, because these notions suppose the reign of a Pope Catholic in his faith and government. Without entering into consideration of the consequences of an heretical, schismatic or non-existent Pope, which would lead to interminable theoretical discussions, in conscience could we not and ought we not, after the promulgation of the 1983 Code of Canon Law which clearly affirms the new Church, and after his scandalous declarations concerning Luther, now affirm that Pope John Paul II is not Catholic? We say no more, but we say no less. We had waited for the measure to become full, and it is so henceforth. 4 Fideliter, n. 123, pp. 25-29. May-June 1998.
We know that subsequent to 1979, when he stated his determination not to enter into the question of the status of the Vatican II Popes, the Archbishop changed his mind and publicly suggested that he might indeed adopt the view that John Paul II was not Pope, as the text of the 1986 conference given above reveals. In the Fideliter interview, Bishop Tissier summarised succinctly the mature stance of the Archbishop.
Fideliter: Yet Archbishop Lefebvre was very reserved about the situation of Popes Paul VI and John Paul II. Bishop Tissier de Mallerais: That is correct. He said more than once about these Popes-about Paul VI from 1976, and about John Paul II, after the prayer meeting of religions at Assisi in 1986 - that he did not exclude the possibility that these Popes were not Popes, that one day the Church will have to examine their situation, that a future Pope and his cardinals might have to pronounce the finding that these men had not been Popes. But for himself, he preferred to consider them as Popes. This supposes that he did not feel that he possessed sufficient knowledge of the pertinent facts nor the necessary power for making such a judgment. This is of critical importance to bear in mind. For instance, the abrupt logic of a Fr. Guérard des Lauriers led to the former conclusion: "The Pope promulgated a heresy [with religious liberty], hence he is a heretic, hence he is not formally Pope." But the wisdom of Archbishop Lefebvre made him feel, to the contrary, that the premises of this reasoning were as shaky as the authority that formulated it, be it that of a theologian or even a bishop. Fideliter: How then did Archbishop Lefebvre resolve the dilemma? Bishop Tissier de Mallerais: The Archbishop left the theological question open. Our venerable confrere, the late Alois Kocher used to say: "Let's leave this question to the theologians of the 21st century! " Our founder took the problem from a higher perspective and resolved it in the most down-to-earth manner possible. It is the mark of the supernatural intuition that he possessed, and of the action in him of the gift of wisdom, gift of the Holy Ghost. 9
Since the Archbishop left the theological question open, it is difficult to understand the determination of some of his priests finally to decide it.