Sermon, June 27, 2025 (Avrillé, France)
Dear Fathers, Frères, Sisters,
My dear Friends, a Catholic Priest is another Christ who transmits grace in Persona Christi. And Jesus Christ has made us a kingdom, and priests to God and his Father, to him glory and empire for ever and ever. Amen (1)
In truth, the Sacred Heart of Jesus must be honored in glory and empire today on His Liturgical Festivity, in particular on occasion of increasing the number of priests to God. Divine Providence brings us together to perform this ceremony as an act of reparation for those sins committed against Him. Why? Because Our Lord also asked for honor and reparation to Saint Mary Margaret of Alacoque at Paray-le-Monial on June 16, 1675. Since 350 years ago, His words are still echoing into the modern world:“Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love; and in return, I receive from the greater part of men only ingratitude by their irreverence and sacrileges… I promise you that My Heart shall expand Itself to shed in abundance the influence of Its Divine Love upon those who shall honor It, and cause it to be honored.” (2)
Once again on June 17, 1689, the Blessed Lord insisted in the fact of honoring for reparation to Saint Mary Margaret by His command to Louis XIV, King the France: he should have consecrated France to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and placed the image of His Heart on the King’s flag. But the King’s response was a manifested ingratitude and irreverence. The French Revolution took over in proclaiming the Human Rights. Louis XVI was consequently stripped of his Royalty being arrested on August 13, 1792; he alone recited a personal consecration to Jesus Christ’s Heart behind prison bars in 1793, a few days later his head was cut off for sentence to death in the guillotine. Yet God inspired in the region from La Vendée some brave clergy and laity who publicly honored in wearing on their white scapular the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, offering their blood even until dead; they truly gave testimony to the Divine Love with a battle cry: Dieu le Roi!
Since then, the Catholic Church has conveyed throughout the world Our Lord’s five petitions to honor Him, namely: The proclamation of the Festivity of the Sacred Heart; the First Friday devotion; the all night of adoration from Thursday into First Friday; the Holy Hour of Reparation; and the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, as Sovereign King, into our homes, works, and nations. So, we simply are here to continue the same crusade for Dieu le Roi [God, the King]. In the same spirit, Archbishop Lefebvre have launched a Priests’ Crusade for the Traditional Latin Mass as an expression of the Royalty of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Ruler for all Nations in matters of Faith and Moral actions. (3)
It seems to me that, after his death, the SSPX doctrinal position was settled only on issues referring to the Traditional Latin Mass and to the canonical regularization with the roman authorities in the Conciliar church, nowadays synodal. Hence, “for politically correct reasons” they have neglected the public teaching for the Kingship of Christ in the social domain. Therefore, we are not on the same doctrinal line with the SSPX for professing in public the Social Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ neither for applying delegated versus supplied jurisdiction concerning the sacraments of Penance and of Matrimony, nor for the question of performing episcopal consecrations.
Nevertheless, we should consecrate these candidates to Holy Orders, and each one of us within the Vendean spirit, as an act of reparation for the ingratitude and sacrileges presently perpetrated against the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, Who is the image of the invisible God (4), the Son of the living God. (5) Let’s also remark the essential principle of the consecration to the Sacred Heart Jesus, as Sovereign King: that is to restore the Catholic State - like President Gabriel Garcia Moreno did it in Ecuador, alike Cardinal Pie asked for it to Napoleon III emperor but the latter didn’t want to do it - by the Profession of Faith in Catholic families through the Enthronement to honor Him.
Under what premises, should we honor Him?
We should honor Him under the ORDER INSPIRED by GOD, and He established by Himself in the Creation, Redemption, and Sanctification of the Human Race. Doubtless to say that the essential element in the Order of God is to restore all things in Jesus Christ, in the midst of the darkness of the modern world by a sacred priestly ministry.
In this perspective, Leo XIII was convinced that the Sacred Heart of Jesus’s commands were as the Labarum of Salvation for the Human Race: “We must have recourse to Him Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We have gone astray and we must return to the right path: darkness has overshadowed our minds, and the gloom must be dispelled by the light of truth: death has seized upon us, and we must have hold of life: It will be at length possible that our many wounds be healed and all justice spring forth again with the hope to restore authority…. When all men should acknowledge the empire of Christ and willingly obey His word, and every tongue shall confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father.” (6)
Thus, Pope Leo’s 30-Encyclicals are a milestone for defending Catholic principles, not only for citizens and families but also for all nations. In order to avoid misunderstandings with the modern world, in particular he enforced the doctrinal teachings of Saint Thomas Aquinas: “We exhort you in all earnestness to restore the golden wisdom of St. Thomas and to spread it far and wide, for the defense and beauty of the Catholic Faith, for the good of society, and for the advantage of all sciences.” (7)
St Thomas truly is a pristine source for Catholicism. He masterfully centered the Sacrament of Holy Orders in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. That’s why NO ORDER IS GIVEN EXCEPT DURING THE CELEBRATION OF MASS (8), for the power of Order is directed either to the consecration of the Holy Eucharist itself, or to some ministry connected with it.
How can we then discern a priestly vocation?
By the inclination of the candidate to serve the divine ministry, and by the CALLING from a Bishop, as authority of God, to call a candidate formally for that ministry, as these candidates today are presented by their religious superiors legitimately authentic.
First of all, a Bishop has called these candidates who were promoted to receive a clerical or a monastic Tonsure that is not an Order but a preamble to Holy Orders. Now according to Saint Gregory: TO SERVE GOD IS TO REIGN. Indeed, a crown is the sign of royalty…..It is becoming for those who apply themselves to the Divine ministry to be tonsured in the form of a crown by reason of the shape, since it is circular…. as well as of perfection; and those who are appointed to the Divine service acquire a royal dignity and ought to be perfect in virtue. (9) Besides, a Bishop in conferring Orders does two things: for he prepares the candidates for the reception of Holy Orders, and delivers to them the power of Order; he prepares them by instructing in their respective offices to adapt them to receive the power. (10)
A second consideration is that Pope Pius XII defined the Sacrament of Holy Orders and established it with Papal authority and determination in an Apostolic Constitution: (11) “….The Traditio Instrumentorum is not necessary for the validity of the Sacred Orders of Diaconate, the Priesthood, and the Episcopacy… As to the matter and form in the conferring of each Order is as follows:
In the Ordination to the Diaconate the matter is the one imposition of the hand of the Bishop which occurs in the Rite of that Ordination. The form consists of the words of the Preface…
In the Ordination to the Priesthood the matter is the first imposition of hands of the Bishop which is done in silence, but not the continuation of the same imposition through the extension of the right hand, nor the last imposition to which are attached the words: Accipe Spiritum Sanctum …. And the form consists of the words of the Preface..”
In the Episcopal Consecration the matter is the imposition of hands done by the Consecrator Bishop… And the form consists of the words of the preface….
Therefore, dear deacon, you will be ordained Priest for the purpose of leading faithful by preaching and administering the Sacraments through the Order of God into the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. Also, you should be greatly indebted to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre because he preserved the perennial Catholic Priesthood, not only in giving testimony of Truth through his theological comprehension but also through his doctrinal wisdom in Roman Liturgy, as he used to repeat: “Lex Credendi, Lex Orandi.”
In my turn, I am greatly indebted to Bishop Williamson for transmitting the Apostolic Succession in the Episcopate so that I can be here today. Allow me to mention an analogy from the example of the Maccabees in regards to the zeal and success of Mathathias: “My sons be zealous for the Law [of God], and give your lives for the covenant of your Fathers (12).” If we thus could say that Archbishop Lefebvre enkindled the zeal and success for keeping Catholic Tradition within the Church, as the Mathathias of the XX century, then one might also say that, in spite of his controversies, Bp. Williamson with the courage of Judas Maccabee succeeded, like a successor of the Maccabee’s episcopal race, in hammering by strong blows of his voice and by solid strokes of his pen to transmit the same spirit of the Archbishop’s crusade. And today’s ceremony shines in Memory of them!
So, a Catholic Priest as another Christ who essentially transmits grace for the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. For that purpose let’s consider five liturgical moments in the [1962] Roman Pontifical Book, used by Archbishop Lefebvre, in conferring the Sacrament of Holy Orders versus the innovations in the New Rite of Ordination:
(1) After the IMPOSITION OF HANDS in silence, then follows the Preface reciting the FORM: “We beseech Thee, Almighty Father, to give unto thy servant the dignity of the Priesthood. Thou renew within his heart the spirit of holiness so that he may persevere in his office, which is next to ours in dignity, since he has received it from Thee, O God, may the example of his life lead others to moral uprightness.”
While saying these words, the ordaining Bishop holds his right hand extended. So, from this combination of words and gesture, we know exactly when a deacon is being ordained priest. In receiving power from above, priests belong to a hierarchical rank because they administer sacraments in Persona Christi. You, deacon, will always be so glad that we are not using the New Rite of Ordination which reads that ‘a priest is being made co-worker with the order of bishops.’ Certainly, it is an expression which itself is very ambiguous, in contrast to the exactness and precision of the Roman Latin Rite.
(2) BLESSINGS: “Deign to consecrate and sanctify these hands, O Lord, by this anointing and our blessing: Amen, so that whatsoever they shall bless should be blessed, and whatsoever they shall consecrate should be consecrated and sanctified, in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen”
However, in the New Rite these words suffered an eclipse: they have been completely eliminated, instead it is said: ‘The Father anointed Jesus Christ as Lord through the power of the Holy Spirit. May Jesus keep you worthy of offering sacrifice to God and sanctifying the Christian assembly.’ So, the priest’s hands are not mentioned at all, nor their power to bless, sanctify and consecrate.
(3) After the ANOINTING OF HANDS with Catechumen Oil, it comes the binding of the priest’s hands with a linen band, then Bishop presents a chalice containing wine and water, the chalice-patten with a host is on it, so Bishop seals up the priest’s hand with a grip of the anointed priest’s fingers to transmit the power to say Mass, saying: “Receive the power to offer sacrifice to God, and to celebrate Masses for the living as well as for the dead. In the name of the Lord. Amen”.
As priests, we have the unfathomable power to celebrate Mass and to change by the Trans-substantiation the bread and wine into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ! But in the New Rite merely the bishop says: ‘Accept these gifts of the people to be offered to God. Be conscious of what you are doing, be as holy as the actions you perform, and model your life after the mystery of the Lord’s Cross.”
(4) After Holy Communion, the Bishop imposing both hands on the priest’s head, says: “Receive the Holy Ghost, whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.” And he releases the Chasuble. Then, the priest places holding together his hands into the Bishop’s hands, who says: “Promise me and my successors reverence and obedience? Bishop, sealing up the priest’s fidelity to the episcopal authority, then the priest in response says: PROMITTO. So, for the New Rite this part is completely omitted. There is no equivalent whatsoever, and makes no explicit mandatory declaration at all for those priests to confer the great power for forgiveness of sins.
(5) Lastly, in Roman Latin Rite a priest should have said, before the tabernacle, the Profession of Faith and the Anti-modernist Oath: “I resolutely accept and embrace the Traditions of the Apostles and all other Traditions of the Church, and all its observances and regulations…. Moreover, I maintain and profess, without doubt, all other teachings of the General Councils, specially the most Holy Council of Trent and the First Ecuмenical Vatican Council…. I condemn, reject, and anathematize all opinions to the contrary and all heresies… So I promise, vow, and swear… to hold and profess this Faith entirely and unblemished.. until my last breath, and so to teach any those who may be committed to my charge. So help me God, and these Holy Gospels which I now touch.”
Therefore, a Catholic Priest is very powerful when saying the Traditional Latin Mass, as well as when using the power of forgiving sins, because he respects the Order God Inspired: there is no other name by which one can be saved: Jesus Christ. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
It is imperative to say that a Priest ordained in the Roman Rite must pray for the Roman Pontiff. Archbishop Lefebvre believed that the Primacy of the Roman Papacy has always been a fundamental principle of the Constitution of the Church. Confronting the conflict between Roman Authority and Catholic Faith, the Archbishop maintained a balance between two extremes, so to say, between schism and heresy. Moreover, some Priests are wanting to be ordained in the Roman Rite, perhaps moved by an exterior attraction in liturgical ceremonies and vestments, or by a beautiful exhibition in cassocks and miters or birretas, but to pray for the Roman Pontiff is pushed off to another dimension. “Simon, Simon…. But I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail, and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren. (Luc. 22,32)”
Could a priest lose his priestly identity?
Unfortunately, a priest could lose his priestly identity, among other reasons for example by a conflict between authority and Truth. That’s why many faithful incurred into a dilemma whether to believe, or not, in a priest ordained with the New Rite of Ordination.
Archbishop Lefebvre commented on his personal point of view about what is the reason for such a crisis within the Church. He made references to some exceptional world events: WWI, WW2, WW3. “The disasters caused by these three wars, especially by the last one of them, are incalculable in the domain of material ruins but even more so in the spiritual realm. The first two paved the way for the war inside of the Church by facilitating the ruin of the Christians institutions and the dominations of the Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ which has become so powerful that it has deeply infiltrated within the governing body of the Church by its Liberal, Modernist doctrine… a diabolical hatred…..
….It is not pride and self-importance to say that God in His merciful wisdom saved the heritage of His priesthood, of His grace, of His revelation, through two bishops [Archbishop Lefebvre and Dom Castro Mayer]. It is not that we have chosen ourselves, but God has guided us in the upholding of all riches of His Incarnation and of His Redemption. Those who feel they must minimize these riches and deny them can only condemn us. This can only confirm their schism with Our Lord and His Kingdom, by means of their secularism and their apostate ecuмenism… They officially contribute to the revolution within the Church and to its destruction..” (13)
Because the New Rite of Ordination expresses in a different way what is a priest, it requires a new way for him to pray publicly. As a result of these innovations, the New Mass is a symbol of an image of a New Faith. This modern way is consistent with the mentality of the modern man, who accepts the plurality of religions (14) by rejecting the Social Reign of Jesus Christ. Certainly, the Synodal Church of Pope Francis accepts a democratic ideal within the fundamental idea of modern man: the power comes from the assembly so that authority is in the people and not in God. That’s why the New Mass is a driving force for a nєω ωσrℓ∂ σr∂єr: man wanting to become a god, in order to build better. So, we should never compromise with the New Mass because it is an expression of a whole New Ideology.
On one hand, it is depicted in the one dollar unchangeable bill within a circle on the left backside. One can see a pyramid of polished square stones rising from a large uncultivated field, meaning that the pyramid is a new humanity, the polished stones are men transformed by the Great Architect of the Universe, who is symbolized by an open eye enclosed in a triangle reading above Annuit Coeptis [He (God) has favored our undertakings], at the base MDCCVXXVI [1776], and below “Novus Ordo Seclorum.” [New Order of Ages] Indeed, the nєω ωσrℓ∂ σr∂єr is the love of man wanting to become a god to an extent to wage a WAR against Jesus Christ, as Saint Augustin said about two loves founded two cities, but the city of man is doomed a downfall and to collapse.
In the other hand, time will tell us how the recent elected Roman Pope will engage in the conflict between Roman authority and Divine Truth. We should pray for him, as Our Lady in Fatima told Lucy that her mission was to pray for the Pope.
As a cause connects to its effect, the American Pope Leo XIV portraits himself as a systemic person in action with a phlegmatic manner in thought, in between it exists a manifested deep influence of his religious mentor from Chicago (USA), Cardinal Bernandin (1982-1996), whose deeds are difficult to be praised. Certainly, the Pope’s sermons and speeches relay conclusions alike synthesis coming from a thesis and an antithesis: not far as Liberal without being too Progresive but also not too Conservative to look as Traditional. In fact, it is Karl Marx’s dialectical materialism, as well as Emmanuel Kant’s principles of his coherent ethic, that are imbued in the thinking of the Sovereign Pontiff. (15) Once again, time will tell us but let’s pray for him, at least that he keeps away from the line of the last Pontificate, particularly in the interpretation of the four sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance, so to say, that these sins are not forgiven by God unless one stops committing them: Usury (16), ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity (17), Rejection of the widows and orphans (18), Retention of the worker’s wages. (19)
Let’s conclude in reading this letter from Archbishop Lefebvre to Pope Paul VI (20), for the purpose of encouraging us to continue keeping faithfully the Crusade launched by the Archbishop for defending the Traditional Catholic Faith and the sacrifice of the Mass in the Traditional Latin Rite :
“ Most Holy Father, deign to manifest your will to see the Kingdom of Our Lord Jesus Christ extended in this world, by restoring the public Law of the Church, by giving the liturgy all its dogmatic value and its hierarchical expression according to the Latin Roman Rite consecrated by so many centuries of use, by restoring the Vulgate [Bible] to honor, by giving back to catechisms their true model that of the Council of Trent. By taking these steps Your Holiness will restore the Catholic Priesthood and the Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ over persons, families and civil societies.
You will give back their correct concept, as Your Predecessors [before Vatican II Council] have done, to false ideas which have become the idols of modern-man: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, and Democracy. Let Your Holiness abandon that malicious oath taken to compromise with the ideas of modern-man, which originates in a secret understanding between high dignitaries in the Church and those of Free-masonic Lodges, since before the Council…
To persevere in that direction is to pursue the destruction of the Catholic Church. Your Holiness will easily understand that we cannot collaborate for a such dangerous purpose, which we should do if we were to close our seminaries.
May the Holy Ghost deign to give Your Holiness the grace of the gift of fortitude so that you may manifest per unequivocal acts that you are truly and authentically the Successor of Peter, proclaiming that there is no salvation except in Jesus Christ and in His Mystical Spouse, the Holy Church, Catholic and Roman.”
We entrust these words to Our lady under the advocation of the Miraculous Medal, the medal that honors the Sacred Heart of Jesus through her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen
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NOTES:
(1).- Apoc. 1, 6
(2).- Autobiography Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.
(3).- Mons. Lefebvre, Sermon 50 ans de sacerdoce, 23 septembre 1979.
(4).- Coloss. 1, 15
(5).- Matt. 16, 16
(6).- Annum Sacrum, 25 mai 1899.
(7).- AETERNI PATRIS, 4 août 1879. [Some years later, Canon Law 1917 Code prescribed C.589 requiring at least four years of priestly training following St. Thomas teaching; and C.1366 &2 requires all professors to teach according to St. Thomas teachings]
(8).- Suppl. Q.40, a.2
(9).- Suppl. Q.40, a.1
(10).- Suppl. Q.37, a.5
(11).- Sacramentum Ordinis, Pius XII, Apostolic Constitution, 30 novembre 1947
(12).- 1Mac. 2,50
(13).- Itinéraire Spirituelle, Prologue, Mons. Lefebvre
(14).- Sermon de Mons. Lefebvre, June 29, 1976
(15).- Discourse de Card. Prevost. 16 novembre, 2023, St. Toribio de Mogrovejo Catholic University, Chiclayo Peru.
(16).- Exod. 22, 25
(17).- Lev. 20, 13; Rom 1, 26-28
(18).- Exod. 22, 22
(19).- Deut. 24,15
(20).- Lettre de Mons. Lefebvre au Pape Paul VI, 17 juillet 1976