Unofficial - Excerpt
December 2024 – Issue 21
Saint Louis Marie Seminary Newsletter
Society of the Apostles of Jesus and Mary
Photo of June 27 th, 2024: Ordinations in Avrillé
Editorial
In order to remain faithful to the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles, in the midst of the generalised apostasy, and to resist the perverse will of a prevaricating hierarchy, God has endowed us, with sanctifying grace, with two particular virtues, today more than ever indispensable, directed by the virtues of prudence and justice (Summa Theologica, IIa IIae q. 120). These are epikeia and the virtue of judgement - gnome -; the latter allows us to go back to first principles (obeying God, doing what is good, obligatory), in the exceptional situation we are suffering from today, in which it would be impossible to apply ordinary laws to the letter, hence the limits of Catholic obedience.
St Thomas tells us that epikeia is ‘a superior rule of human acts, which is the best, most excellent and principal thing in the whole order of justice’. Epikeia makes us adopt the conduct that equity requires when there is a conflict of duties, for example in the case of indiscreet, unwarranted, non-Catholic obedience: to obey God, or to obey a prevaricating hierarchy? It is the supreme safeguard of justice in extraordinary situations, in cases where it is absolutely necessary in order to keep the Faith. Good counsel reveals and indicates the course of action to be taken in these cases, and judgement produces certainty. The virtue of discernment must regulate man's judgments as to what he should do: in a given case, to obey or not to obey men, in order to obey God.
It is the virtue of common sense that makes it possible to judge the right thing to do in an extraordinary, unforeseeable situation. - The virtue of judgment judges according to the highest principles: to do good, to avoid evil, to obey God, to keep the Faith, etc. This virtue governs those of our decisions which are outside the ordinary, usual ways: in exceptional situations, etc. ‘It happens, in an exceptional case, that one must go, in practice, beyond the common rules’, for example, refusing obedience to a superior if he is unfaithful or if he prevaricates.
This virtue of judgment implies a great deal of discernment and insight. We judge in spirit and in truth, according to the spirit of the law, but outside the letter of the law, because the situation demands it: the need to keep the Faith makes the law, as the saying goes. Faced with an imminent danger to the Faith, we must perform an act that is necessary to safeguard souls, for example to consider an episcopal consecration or apparently illicit priestly ordinations. Epikeia therefore allows us to interpret not the text of the law (obeying the superior, for example), but the intention of the legislator: we must obey for life, for the good, for the Faith, and not against life, against the good, against the Faith, against the Will of God (by accepting, for example, a new religion, a different Gospel) (cf. Gal. 1, 8 - 2 Cor. 11, 4). ‘Resist the devil, strong in the faith’ (1 Pe. 5, 9).
Fifty years ago this year, Archbishop Lefebvre, among many other virtues, demonstrated these two virtues to a heroic degree, when, distinguishing between the two Romes (Eternal Rome and Conciliar Rome), he drew up his Declaration of 21 November 1974, the veritable charter of our resistance to save the Faith and the Church, the practical consequence of which was the episcopal consecrations of 1988. May God bless you all!
+ Mgr Jean Michel Faure
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Chronicle of the Seminary
Thursday 27th June On the feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, Bishop Faure conferred the diaconate on Mr. Paul Ren***t at the Couvent de la Haye-aux-Bonshommes. During the same ceremony, a Dominican friar was ordained to the priesthood and another to the diaconate. Several priest friends came to support their young confreres.
July The summer holidays are an opportunity for rest and for a change of activities, but they are far from being idle. As for study, Fr. Rouss*** and Mr. Ren***t took part in the Session Cardinal Pie in Avrillé, a study session on the root causes of the Revolution and the Counter-Revolution. As for the apostolate, our new deacon is off to the Philippines for two months, while, taking advantage of the absence of the seminarians, we welcome Fr. Dominique Rouss*** …
...May God grant Mgr Faure many years of life and, above all, good health, so that he can continue to do much good to souls through his episcopal ministry.
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