(Continued)The Conciliar Docuмents
In the first part of Archbishop Huonder's trilogy ("
The Great Wound"), at the end of the first part, he quotes Archbishop Lefebvre addressing Pope John Paul II (November 18, 1978): "With regard to the Council, I told the Pope that I had proposed a formula like this: 'I accept the docuмents of the Council interpreted in the light of Tradition. He found it fully satisfactory and natural.
On reading this quotation, given what is known about what followed this meeting with the Pope and Archbishop Lefebvre, one wonders whether the Council's docuмents were not accepted. A question arises: Is it a definitive judgment by Archbishop Lefebvre, as Bishop Huonder implies, on the Council on the Council and its docuмents?
The answer will consist in opening public docuмents, especially those surrounding the consecrations of 1988, a capital event in the life of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the high point of his life as a bishop and the "
opus" of his of his life as a bishop and "Operation Survival of Tradition," as he himself put it in the sermon of the episcopal consecration.
What Archbishop Huonder does not say is this: if it is true that Archbishop Lefebvre said this with John Paul II, who had just been elected pope, the following events have proven that the Archbishop went back on this ambiguous phrase. The proof of this is the press conference, for example, on June 15, 1988, a few days before the consecration of the bishops (June 30).
Here is the passage from the interview with
30 Days (June 1989) on the subject of the Council and its
reception:
"
In one of his first speeches the new Pope had said that the Council would be interpreted in the light of the Tradition and the constant magisterium of the Church. A statement that gave me great hope. Then I was received by John Paul II and we spoke one-on-one for thirty minutes. He was in favor of granting us the faculty to celebrate the Mass of St. Pius V and said he was ready to recognize a juridical status for the Society. I therefore declared that I accepted the teaching of the Second Vatican Council in the light of Tradtion. A solution did indeed seem close and possible. But then Cardinal Seper, then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, joined us in the pontifical apartment. He told the Pope that it would be a grave error to grant us the right to celebrate the 'old' Mass, because we would be using it as a flag to illegitimize the entire Council. John Paul II insisted that together, and through dialogue, we find an agreement. And so began long and exhausting negotiations, especially by letter, with the Roman dicasteries. But I realized that the other side was still distrustful. Then my illusions about the pontificate fell with time. And today I am convinced that no agreement is possible as long as the modernists continue to occupy all the key positions in the Church."
There are many docuмents in which the Archbishop denounces the Vatican II. Here is the list, not exhaustive, for we do not include here the conferences, homilies, and lectures of Archbishop Lefebvre on the subject. Here are some of the main works:
-
I Accuse the Council (1976); two volumes;
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They Have Uncrowned Him (1987);
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Doubts Abour Religious Liberty (1987).
A few days before the consecrations of June 30, 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre had unambiguously denounced the Council. It was on June 15, in fact, that he convened the press of the world in Ecône and that he gave a conference. It is important that our readers - and that Bishop Huonder - take note of what the Archbishop solemnly declared.
Here are two extracts, let us read them with attention:
"(...) At the Council, I and a number of bishops read against modernism and against the errors that we considered inadmissible and incompatible with the Catholic faith. The basic problem is this. It is a formal, deep, radical opposition to the modern and modernist ideas that have passed through the Council. You will say to me, but what do you mean by this? Well, I'm going to quote some of the subjects of this modernism. They are, for example, the acceptance of the Rights of Man of 1789. It is the common right in the civil society of all religions, that is to say the principle of the secularity of the State.
It is the ecuмenism or the associaHon of all religions. It is Assisi, it is Kyoto, it is visits to the ѕуηαgσgυє, to the Protestant Temple; and in the Church it is collegiality, with synods, episcopal conferences, changes in the liturgy, changes in catechesis, the increase in the number of catechesis, the increase in the participaioon of the laity and of women in the religious religious fields. You have spoken about it in your newspapers, you know these things well since all this appeared on the occasion of the synods in Rome. It is the negation of the Church's past. There is a struggle going on in the Church to eradicate the past, the tradtion of the Church. This continual persecution against those who want to remain Catholic, as were the popes before Vatican II. This is our position. We continue what the popes taught and did before VaHcan II. We oppose what Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II have done now, because they have made a break with their predecessors. We prefer the Church's tradition to the work of a few popes who oppose their predecessors. (...)
(...) But precisely, we are not in the same truth. For them the truth is evolutionary, the truth changes with time, and Traditionon: it is Vatican II today. For us Traditionon is what the Church has taught from the apostles until today. For them, no, Tradtion is Vatican II, which summarizes in itself all that has been said before. The historical circuмstances are such that now we must believe what Vatican II did. This is what happened before, it doesn't exist anymore. It belongs to the past time. That is why the Cardinal does not hesitate to say, "The Second Vatican Council is an anti-Syllabus. One wonders how a cardinal of the Holy Church can say that the Council of Vatican II is an anti-Syllabus, a very official act of Pope Pius IX in the encyclical
Quanta Cura. This is unimaginable.
I once said to Cardinal Ratzinger: "Eminence, we have to choose: either religious freedom as it is in the Council, or the
Syllabus of Pius IX. They are contradictory and we must choose. Then he said to me: "But Monsignor, we are no longer the time of the
Syllabus." Ah! I said, "then the truth changes with time. So what you are telling me today, tomorrow it will no longer be true. There is no way to agree anymore, we are in a continual evolution. It becomes impossible to talk.
They have this in mind. He repeated to me: "There is only one Church now, it is the Church of Vatican II. Vatican II represents Tradition. Unfortunately, the Church of Vatican II is opposed to Tradition. It is not the same thing (...)"
It would be appropriate for Bishop Huonder to become acquainted with these docuмents, which neutralize the conclusion given to the first part of this trilogy "
The Great Wound". The process of the Council interpreted in the light of the Tradtion" is reductive and does not reflect Archbishop Lefebvre's real and profound thinking on the Council and its use. Far from being a definitive position on the Council, this sentence is to be contextualized: It was the beginning of the pontificate of John Paul II and Archbishop Lefebvre had, at the time, a favorable
a priori impression of this new pope, who had come from the countries of the East under communist domination. "Then my illusions about the pontificate fell with time. And today I am convinced that no agreement is possible as long as the modernists continue to occupy all the key positions in the Church. (
30 Days, June 1989)
To retain, therefore, only this perspective in order to define Archbishop Lefebvre's judgment on the Second Vatican Council is reductive, and therefore misleading.
We denounce this procedure.
May 10, 2023
Topic: +Huonder: The Fox in the Henhouse (Read 4963 times)