Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre

Bp. THOMAS SPEAKS

Bp. THOMAS SPEAKS on August 17, 2024

This true disciple made no compromise,

And, to his Master, proves still faithful and wise.

Bishop Thomas Aquinas, Superior of the “Resistance” Benedictine Monastery in the hills behind Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, does not often make public declarations, but the one that he made at the end of last month on “Archbishop Lefebvre, Archbishop Vigano and Sedevacantism” might make us wish that he took position in public more often. In those crucial years of the 1970’s and 1980’s Fr. Thomas Aquinas was never a seminarian directly under Archbishop Lefebvre inside the Archbishop’s Society of St Pius X, but he was closer to the Archbishop in thought and mind than many of his own seminarians, and could be called at that time a confidant of the Archbishop. His faithfulness to the Archbishop’s way of thinking is clear from this recent article of Bishop Thomas, translated below, complete, from a French version of the original –

Archbishop Vigano has behaved like a true hero ever since he realised, or began to realise, just how the Conciliar Church is doctrinally and morally decomposing. Unfortunately he seems to be leaning towards the position that the Apostolic See is vacant. Time will tell if he is truly a sedevacantist.

As for Archbishop Lefebvre, he had already begun this fight with the Conciliar Church when it was even more decisive than it is today. He had gained the trust of Catholics all over the world, thanks to his solid doctrinal formation and to his superior practical judgment. The latter enabled him to avoid both the trap to the left of the Ecclesia Dei communities going back under Rome, and the trap to the right of sedevacantism. He pointed out precisely how on the left Dom Gerard and others like him were leading their communities to commit suicide by placing themselves under the authority of the modernists, while the sedevacantists on the right were putting themselves in a position as uncertain as it is dangerous, by stating more than Church teaching allows one to state.

Some people think that Archbishop Lefebvre would be a sedevacantist today. I do not think so. I even think the opposite. I think the arguments he gave when he was alive have lost nothing of their force or relevance today. His arguments are simple. What becomes of the Church if the Popes from John XXIII to Francis were never Popes? Were the Cardinals appointed by them not valid Cardinals? Who will elect the next Pope? How can we ever have a Pope again? Sedevacantism would seem to imperil the very existence of the Church. Let us rather wait for the Church to give official judgment on the question one day, so as to resolve it once and for all.

Given how opinions held and measures undertaken diverge within Tradition today, I see only one reasonable line of conduct: to hold on to and to hand down what we received from Archbishop Lefebvre, in doctrine and in practice. Many will object that in practice one needs to take into account how the state of the Church crisis has evolved from the Archbishop’s day to our own. True, there have been changes, but they are not essential. The crisis remains essentially the same. Like the Arian crisis which lasted 60 years, this crisis carries on, unchanged. Hence the relevance of the Archbishop’s example.

May Our Lady, conqueror of all heresies, grant us the grace to overcome the attacks of the Devil and of the modernists.

+Tomas Aquinas, O.S.B.

Here is the Catholic wisdom of Archbishop Lefebvre, restated for our times, most fruitful for the Church when judged by its fruits, of not deviating to the right or to the left, as the Lord God commanded Joshua when he succeeded to Moses as leader of the Israelites (Joshua I, 7). Truth is the measure of this centre position, and not where right or left may happen to find themselves, because Truth is of God.

Kyrie eleison.

LAW DEFINED

LAW DEFINED on August 3, 2024

And if I don’t see the monstrosity, I must pray,

As often urged, full fifteen Mysteries a day!

The desperate attempts of Pope Francis to use all of his papal Authority to crush the Tridentine rite of Mass and eliminate it from the Catholic Church once and for all, are rightly gaining less and less traction from among Catholics. Just how Almighty God can have allowed His own Authority that He entrusts to His Vicar on earth to be so misused, remains a mystery, because of course He gives it into the hands of men to build up His Church and not to pull it down. Many Catholics are so agonised by the problem that they are resorting to the simple solution of sedevacantism, because by that theory of there having been no valid Pope since John XXIII (1958–1963), all six Popes since Vatican II (1962–1965) have not been Popes at all. But that theory, which seems to solve the problem of the Conciliar Popes with such ease, takes many contradictory forms, and can lead to Catholics abandoning the Faith altogether, on the grounds that there can be no valid priesthood left at all, so they might as well stay at home rather than go to Mass. Thus sedevacantism can raise rather more problems than it seems to solve.

Such fruits suggest that sedevacantism may well not be the right solution to the serious problem set by all six Conciliar Popes, one after another, and culminating in the special horrors of Pope Francis. It may be a good moment to remember the fruitful solution of Archbishop Lefebvre (1905–1991), Traditionalism, of which he was the outstanding pioneer in its opposition today to the modernism of Vatican II.

Tradition is Catholicism, he said, and Catholicism is Tradition. “Jesus is the same, yesterday, today and for ever” (Heb. XIII, 8). Centuries of Protestantism and Liberalism have created a modern world which is so glamorous and seductive that in the end even the Vicars of Christ on earth have allowed themselves to be persuaded that Jesus needs to adapt himself to modern man, and not the other way round. But Jesus and His Church need no modernisation, all they need is to be presented as Catholic Tradition always used to do in times past. And the astonishing success of the Archbishop’s Society of St Pius X all over the world, at least until he died in 1991, proved that the Traditional version of Jesus and His Church can still flourish, despite modernity.

Then what did the Archbishop say about modernist Catholic Authority? He said that even Catholic Popes remain by themselves fallible men, unless they engage their infallible Authority, which they can only do on the four strict conditions clearly laid down in the solemn Definition of infallibility of 1870. If all four of those conditions are not present – and the Conciliar Popes never presented all four in their promotion of the Conciliar novelties – then Popes are as capable as any normal human being of making mistakes. And so all the modernist novelties of Vatican II in no way come under the protection of papal infallibility, which is highly restricted in its practical application.

But what about the Pope’s papal commands to abandon the Traditional rite of the Latin Mass? Are we not bound to obey him? No, we are not bound to obey him because it is not a lawful command, as Archbishop Lefebvre always said, and as the Catholic Church has always said. The Pope has no power from God to command just anything that comes into his head. The definition of law is that it is a command of reason for the common good made by those who are responsible for the common good. So if it is not for the common good, like any law pretending to legalise abortion, then it is no law at all.

Therefore when it comes to the sacrifice of the Mass, of which Padre Pio said that our planet earth can sooner do without the light of the sun than without that sacrifice, to replace its most venerable and dignified rite in Latin, centred on God, with a new rite in modern languages, doctrinally doubtful, without dignity, invented to centre on man, is so clearly opposed to the true common good of the Catholic Church that it cannot possibly be the object of a true law of the Church. Therefore no such pretended law need be obeyed, however many times Pope Paul VI or Pope Francis or their successors may try to impose any such monstrosity.

Kyrie eleison.

VIGANO COUNTER-ATTACKS

VIGANO COUNTER-ATTACKS on July 13, 2024

With some of the arguments one may not agree,

But here is a Catholic spirit, faithful and free.

Summoned by Rome to appear before a Newchurch court on June 28 to answer accusations of “schism,” the heroic defender of the Faith, Archbishop Vigano, chose to reply on the same day by making public an explanation of why he refused the Newchurch summons. A one-sentence-per-paragraph summary of that explanation cannot possibly do justice to the original, but it provides readers with an overview –

1 Quotation of Galatians I, verses 8–9; Let any innovated Gospel be anathema, i.e. absolutely rejected.

2 In 1975 Archbishop Lefebvre told his Roman accusers that he should be judging them, not vice versa.

3 I do not recognise the authority of this Roman court accusing me, because it lacks the Truth.

4 Not for one moment in my life have I been outside the one Ark of Salvation – the Catholic Church.

5 The Church’s enemies, led by Freemasonry, hate the power of Catholic Tradition.

6 It is clear that behind the revolution of Vatican II in the Church has been Freemasonry.

7 Freemasons have approved of their own 1789 (French Revolution) having taken over the true Church.

8 How many of the ringleaders of the “Up-dating” of Vatican II were condemned before the Council!

9 Today’s head of the Italian bishops is saying a Mass for a notorious modernist from the past.

10 A Professor just said that the “necessary renewal” was being blocked for fear of Protestantism.

11 An abyss separates the true Church of dogmas from the Newchurch (not Vigano’s term) of apostasy.

12 Truth has been relativised. If the modernist Sanhedrin accuses me, it is accusing all Catholic Popes.

13 Church and Newchurch contradict one another. It is the Newchurch that is accusing me of “schism.”

14 The Newchurch’s “necessary renewal” means, for the true Church, the heretical evolution of dogma.

15 The Newchurch’s brand-new “faith” is in rupture with the Faith of the true Church of 2,000 years.

16 But Lefebvre never called in question the Conciliar Popes’ legitimacy? That was 40 years ago!

17 Today’s Newchurch is professing, unanimously, a multitude of condemned errors.

18 By thus consigning millions of souls to perdition, the Newchurch has lost its Catholic Authority.

19 The Newchurch’s “authority” to put me on trial is null and void. I do not accept it.

20 I myself was one of many high churchmen who did not see what was really going on.

21 It was as Nuncio in the USA, confronting Cardinal McCarrick, that I at last understood – we have

22 a concerted global attack, both religious and political, being made on traditional Christian society.

23 The corruption I was observing is an integral part of this advance of the New World Order.

24 As Our Lady of La Salette said, “Rome will lose the Faith and become the Seat of the Antichrist.”

25 I cannot be silent in the face of the Church’s demolition, with the damnation of so many souls.

26 In Canon Law there is no crime of schism when a Pope’s Conclave and election are cast in doubt.

27 Paul IV decreed that to any “Pope” who was a heretic prior to his election, no obedience is due.

28 So Bergoglio, by prior heresy and invalid intention at his “election,” has never been Pope.

29 However, for me to attack Bergoglio in this way by no means proves that I want to be in schism. And

30 is not his own preference to be known merely as “Bishop of Rome” a real attack on the Papacy?

31 Cannot all Conciliar Popes dropping the Tiara for ecumenical reasons be called in doubt as Popes?

32 If Conciliar ecumenism is nonsense, how can the ecumenical Bergoglio not be a nonsense Pope?

33 Many bishops and priests cannot bear what he imposes on them by force, blackmail and threats.

34 We pastors must wake up and react! We will answer before God for all that we go along with.

35 I denounce my accusers, their “Council” and their “Pope.” Saints Peter and Paul, save the Church!

36 As a bishop consecrated to guard the Faith and preach the Word, I am defending the Church, not me.

37 I cannot be accused of cutting with (=schism) Bergoglio’s Newchurch because I never belonged to it.

38 A Pope cannot be accused by anybody beneath him? Yes he can, if he never was Pope.

39 Bergoglio also misused his papal authority to help promote the deadly covid “Vaccines,” a real crime.

40 He also cut a criminal deal with the Chinese government, betraying the truly faithful Catholics.

41 As for my being accused of rejecting the errors and deviations of Vatican II, I consider that an honour.

42 And if Vatican II excuses certain schismatics (see L.G. #13) how can they accuse me of schism?

43 I condemn also all the multiple heresies of the post-conciliar “Magisterium” and “Synodal Church.”

44 Dear Catholics, pray, do penance and make sacrifices for Mother Church’s freedom and triumph.

Kyrie eleison.

REASON for the “RESISTANCE”

REASON for the “RESISTANCE” on February 10, 2024

God gave us the wise old Saint He knew we need –

How could a youngster think that he could lead?

Less than one month ago, on January 24, the Brazilian Prior of the Traditional Benedictine Monastery of Santa Cruz, nestling in high hills of Brazil behind Rio de Janeiro, Bishop Thomas Aquinas, published a severe denunciation of a prominent leader who is active worldwide in the Traditional Catholic movement. But surely Traditionalists have enough problems from outside of Tradition without having to fight among themselves as well? Normally that is Catholic common sense, but not if the very basis of Catholicism, the Catholic Faith, is at stake. Now in the struggle between Rome and the Society of St Pius X, never has it not been at stake. Let readers judge for themselves if, as a shepherd of Our Lord’s flock, Bishop Thomas has done anything other than his bounden duty by denouncing this wolf in sheep’s clothing – 

The reason for the existence of the Resistance is none other than Dom Fellay, with his words and actions. His words minimized the gravity of the crisis and of the Council. His actions exposed Tradition to suffer the same fate as the Ecclesia Dei communities. 

Dom Fellay did not speak like Dom Lefebvre. Dom Lefebvre strongly denounced the Council’s mistakes, as well as the churchmen who were the cause of those mistakes. He warned virtually all the popes about their responsibilities. He told John Paul II that if he continued on the path of ecumenism he would no longer be the good shepherd, and in the drawing about Assisi he said, with images and words, that John Paul II would go to hell if he continued to be an ecumenist. He told Cardinal Ratzinger that he, Ratzinger, was against the Christianization of society. The Archbishop denounced the apostasy of Vatican II. ( . . . ) He defended priests and faithful from modernist contagion. He exposed himself to an invalid but degrading excommunication. In defence of France he did not back down in the face of the Muslim danger. He protected us against Dom Gérard’s Roman temptation. He was, in short, like bishops of old: the defender of Christianity and of its basis, which is the faith. He was the man of theological virtues, who sustained our faith and all virtues. 

And Dom Fellay? Did he continue Dom Lefebvre’s actions? No. Both in word and in deed, Dom Fellay distanced himself from Dom Lefebvre. Regarding the heresy of Religious Freedom, he minimized the seriousness of what the Council had said. He did not react to the mistakes like Dom Lefebvre. He did not talk about the two churches, as did Dom Lefebvre. He did not clearly distinguish the official Church from the Catholic Church, but spoke of a “Concrete Church,” confusing the faithful and even priests. What specific church is this? Do we have to be in this church? We are in the Catholic Church. We recognize the Pope, but not the Conciliar Church that Cardinal Benelli spoke of. We recognize the Pope, but not his doctrine or his actions contrary to Tradition. These acts are not Catholic, but anti-Catholic. 

It was under the influence of Dom Fellay that the 2012 Chapter modified the principle enunciated by the 2006 Chapter: there can be no practical agreement without doctrinal agreement. This did not please Dom Fellay, and it was changed. Under certain conditions, the Fraternity can now reach a practical agreement without a doctrinal agreement. It is a legal loophole, opening the way to lead the Fraternity down the path of the Ecclesia Dei communities. He did not go that far, but he lowered his guard, and Rome took advantage of that. Opposition from within the Fraternity Dom Fellay repressed by expelling Dom Williamson and other priests; then he punished others, such as the seven deans who rightly protested against Rome’s marriage document. Dom Fellay disorganized Tradition, walked away from Dom Lefebvre’s line, and made others also depart from it. To resist this departure was the reason for the “Resistance” coming into existence. 

We want to follow Dom Lefebvre in everything, in doctrine and also in practical solutions, because, as Aristotle and St.Thomas teach, the examples of the ancients serve as principles of action. We follow Dom Lefebvre in doctrine and action, especially in relation to modernist Rome, and we do this to be faithful to Eternal Rome, teacher of truth and holiness. 

Kyrie eleison 

Ruinations Causes

Ruinations Causes on March 13, 2021

Two weeks ago in these “Comments” a veteran Traditionalist made some interesting comments on the subject of infiltrators, conscious or unconscious, wrecking the Catholic Church from within. Readers may recall how he strove in vain to restore Catholic Tradition within the Conciliar structure. He found out that it could not be done. When further asked, “But how could the very churchmen commit the Church’s suicide? That makes no sense!,” he had further interesting things to say –

I think all of this comes down to a love of the Truth or a lack of Truth. In my opinion, those who truly love the Truth will find it – or struggle until they do find it, and then act upon it. I think the Faith collapsed in the 1960 and ‘70s because Catholics had become so weak. At the noon Mass at my parish in the 1950s, practically no one went to Communion. Priests come from the people, and the people had become soft. When the changes came, one half of those people gladly accepted those changes since it made living the “Faith” much easier, because non-Catholics were no longer hostile, one faith was as good as another, we could now all smile at each other, and did the clergy ever lead lead the way! Most of the other half either joined Protestant sects or simply gave up religion altogether. A few brave souls, a tiny minority who still possessed that love of the Faith, formed their own chapels. Their greatest inspiration was Archbishop Lefebvre, who alone had the faith to grasp that the hierarchy was in a hopeless state of apostasy.

God alone can judge men’s hearts, but in my opinion there is no excuse for those who abandoned the Faith. Perhaps nearly all who did so will pay with their souls. My generation is the worst because we were born and raised in the Faith and we abandoned it because we thought it would make life easier and far less of a challenge. The following generations, although a bit less guilty because they were denied their Catholic heritage, still had little excuse, as everyone has a duty to live the Truth. Where the faith is soft, Catholics are cowards, particularly when it comes to abortion. The bishops won’t even speak out against it, for fear of losing their tax status or of offending someone. Senator Timothy Kaine who lives in our city is as pro-abort and pro-perversion as one can be, while still claiming that the Catholic Faith is the most important thing in his life. He said it all when he said, “I am a Francis-type Catholic.” To my knowledge, the Bishop of Richmond has never challenged him on abortion, much less denied him what passes for Holy Communion, when he should have excommunicated him long ago.

The veteran above is probing the general collapse of Catholics after Vatican II. Another reader of these “Comments” seeks below the cause of the particular slide of the Society of St Pius X, which had nevertheless been raised by God to resist that general collapse –

I think it’s Pharisaism. It’s the same Pharisaism that killed Our Lord that is now killing the Church and the Society. True humility and charity have been lost. Pharisaism, as of the “whited sepulchres” in the Gospel, leads to spiritual blindness – “Make this people blind, so that seeing they may not see, hearing they may not hear” . . . . The Pharisees had a perfect knowledge of the Scriptures and the Law, yet still they killed their Messiah. Today they are killing the Church, and they simply cannot see it, they are blind . . .

In the Society I do believe there were at least subversive priests, and at the top some leaders suffering from complete blindness, but these would have gotten nowhere if the Society as a whole had not fallen into Pharisaism. Had they humbly followed their saintly Founder, they would not have thought they knew better than he did, nor would they have pushed aside Our Lady’s requests for Rosaries for the Consecration of Russia, thinking they knew better than God Himself. Such an insult could not go unpunished by Him. The punishment was the spiritual blindness as of the Pharisees, a dreadful punishment! God, have mercy upon us!

Kyrie eleison.

Unconscious “Infiltrators”

Unconscious "Infiltrators" on February 27, 2021

In these “Comments” of three weeks ago, where a reader was looking for an explanation of the decline of the Society of St Pius X after the death in 1991 of its Founder, Archbishop Lefebvre, the question arose of possible infiltration of the SSPX by enemies of Catholic Tradition. Had there been infiltrators? These “Comments” took the position that no conscious or clear infiltrators had ever been discovered, but there had been a number of SSPX priests at the top of the Society who had used all their influence at the top to change the Society’s direction from that given to it by the Archbishop, without their being necessarily conscious of acting as infiltrators. In fact they may have infiltrated all the more effectively for being unconscious infiltrators! God knows, one or the other of them may have known exactly what he was doing to cripple the Society from within, but it never seemed so outwardly.

We are right up against the mystery of modernism, which must have sent millions of souls to Hell. Let us take yet another look, with another witness, a veteran Traditionalist who has spent tens of years in the fight for Catholic Tradition in Traditional chapels of the United States. The heavy black print is from the editor of the “Comments,” but every word in italics is from the veteran –

As one who has been a member of three Traditional parishes, a principal founder of two, and an activist in all three, I remember saying many years ago and many times over that the Devil infiltrates with his own people every single Traditional parish, that is, with people who are usually “sleepers,” who bide their time waiting for the right moment to strike. Having an Angelic intelligence and having been around for thousands of years, he is far from stupid and knows it is much easier to destroy a parish from within rather than from the outside. I have encountered these people in all three parishes. No doubt they are within the SSPX, with most not conscious that they are the Devil’s helpers, but he knows it. In fact, if they are not there, he is not doing his job.

The SSPX should disengage all contact with the Conciliar Church until that day when that masterpiece creation of the Devil is converted, which will be almost certainly after God chastises it in the most severe way along with its partner: the world. The SSPX is attempting to do what I attempted to do locally when I and another individual sat down three times in 1990–91 with Richmond’s two bishops and requested and negotiated the founding of St. Joseph’s parish, which, incidentally, was at that time the first and only Traditional Catholic parish in the world in union with Modernist Rome, with the Mass and all Sacraments in the Traditional Rite. ( . . . )

With St. Joseph’s, it was my intent to draw in hundreds of Novus Ordo Catholics and over time to make them all good Traditionalists. I was dreaming. St. Joseph’s today, with its likely thousand plus parishioners and its paid for 2 ½ million dollar building on multiple acres is in the hands of the doubtfully ordained Fraternity of St. Peter priests. It is a hybrid parish, with the “Traditional Mass and Sacraments” but in every other way Novus Ordo. I have not the slightest doubt that should it close its doors today, nearly every parishioner would be at a Novus Ordo “Mass” next Sunday. Such a fate awaits the SSPX should it merge with the Novus Ordo.

Now, were the two bishops and our veteran conscious “infiltrators”? The veteran certainly not. The two bishops possibly, but is it not equally possible that they too were acting in good faith? What seems most likely is that all three men were “dreaming.” Of what? Surely of mixing oil and water. Of mixing Traditional Truth with Conciliar Authority. But it cannot be done. The Archbishop knew that from the beginning. Our veteran came to know it, God bless him. Many souls in the Society still do not know it. They are dreaming, and they are all, in effect, unconscious “infiltrators.”

Kyrie eleison.