An Open Letter To Confused Catholics

AN OPEN LETTER
TO
CONFUSED CATHOLICS
By
Archbishop Lefebvre
Translated by Father M. Crowdy
Fowler Wright Books Ltd
for
The Society of St. Pius X.
1986
First Published in France Editions Albin Michel
English translation 1986 The Society of St. Puis X
Fowler Wright Books Ltd.
Burgess Street
Leominster
Herefordshire, England.
Typeset and Printed in England by
Leominster Print, Leominster, Herefordshire
ISBN 0 85244 047 2
Copyright ':S 1986 The Society of St. Pius X
Contents
1 Why are Catholics Confused? 9
2 "They are Changing Our Religion" 14
3 What They are Doing to the Mass 23
4 The Mass of All Times versus the Mass of
Our Time 28
5 "You're a Dinosaur!" 38
6 The New Forms of Baptism, Marriage,
Penance and Extreme Unction 45
7 The New Priests 57
8 The New Catechisms 64
9 The New Theology 73
10 Ecumenism 78
11 Religious Li berty 83
12 Comrades and Fellow- Travellers 89
13 Religious Liberty, Collegial Equality,
Ecumenical Fratcrnit y 97
14 "Vatican II is the French Revolution in the
Church" 105
15 The Marriage of the Church and the
Revolution 114
16 Neo-modernism or the Undermining of the
Faith 120
17 What is Tradition? 129
18 True and False Obedience 134
19 The Ec6ne Seminary and Rome 142
20 The Mass of All Time 148
21 Neither a Heretic nor a Schismatic 153
22 What Families Can Do 160
23 Building Up versus Pulling Down 164
Preface
While presenting in English Archbishop Lefebvre's

recently published book, (his only one apart from some
collections of addresses) I feel there is a need also of some
words of introduction to the author himself - so well
known by name, but so little known as he is.
Starting life in an exemplary Catholic family of the
north of France, in which five of the children became
priests or nuns, Marcel Lefebvre knew his vocation from
an early age. He joined the Holy Ghost Fathers, and after
the usual training his life was that of a missionary and
seminary professor. It became recognised that he had to
an exceptional degree the qualities of a bishop, and he
was promoted Archbishop of Dakar and eventually as the
Pope's representative, or Apostolic Delegate, for all
French-speaking Africa. For six years he was also
superior-general of his Order, which is the largest of the
missionary congregations.
So Archbishop Lefebvre is first and foremost a
missionary bishop, and typical of what a bishop should
be. His qualities are not showy, they are those of a
Christian ruler, which is what a bishop is: reliability,
straightforwardness, calmness, approachability, with a
capacity for taking decisions and sticking to them. Such a
man would never, in ordinary times, have been
controversial: he would have continued administering
and inspiring the day-to-day work of the missions until his
eventual retirement to the position of an "elder
statesman". What brought him into the limelight, and
made him an object of opprobrium or of admiration all
over the Catholic world, is the revolutionary situation in
the Church - it is nothing less - that has been developing
since the Second Vatican Council.
There is no need for me to enlarge on that situation
now: it is the subject-matter of this book, whose first part
is a factual study of what is going on in the Catholic
Church, while in the second part the causes of it all are
examined. Here readers will also find the answers to their
questions about the author's personal involvment.
The Archbishop's wide experience makes his analysis
an authoritative one. His writing has also a quality that
may be unexpected, for all who have only heard about
him: it is so eminently reasona ble. If he is a "rebel" (as we
never cease being told) he is an uncommonly calm and
courteous one. If this comes as a surprise, it is because he
has been given little opportunity to make himself known.
He has been conveniently buried in silence, except when
quoted as an example of obstinate backwardness, by all
who are embarrassed by the accusations he makes, or
simply the position he adopts. In view of this, the
pu blishing of this book is a belated act of justice.
He causes embarrassment in the manner of the little
boy in Hans Andersen's parable, who alone spoke the
obvious truth, "The Emperor has no clothes!". Among
the chorus of satisfaction at the renewal of the Church by
Vatican II, the Archbishop asks what, precisely, this
renewal consists in. And he points out the facts that can
be shown by statistics: the dramatic decline in baptisms,
confirmations and ordinations, in the numbers of monks
and nuns, and of schools; not to mention the confusion
among the faithful, especially the rising generation,
about what Catholic belief is. In this situation, he asks
first and foremost for truthfulness (which in revolutions is
always one of the first casualties) - truthfulness as to the
facts of the present situation, and also with regard to the
Church's established teaching. He knows that the
blurring of this with a view to some immediate advantage
is disastrous for the faith of Catholics, and unjust to the
others for whose supposed benefit it is usually done. His
frank acceptance of established doctrine gives the
Archbishop's writing another characteristic that one is
grateful for: its perfect clarity. He knows his mind
because he knows what his faith is.
It is likely that some who read these pages will be
alerted for the first time to the extent of the disinteg
ration in the Catholic Church. If they are shocked into a
realisation that a revolution is in progress which, if it
continues. will eventually engulf their parish also, they
may nevertheless find some of the Archbishop's language
a little exaggerated: he may seem too absolute. How, for
example, can he calmly dismiss as unfit for Christia ns
ideas like Liberalism, Religious Liberty, and Socialism?
Here, a word of explanation is called for. We must
remember that the author is writing against the
background of France, where ideas are generally more
clear-cut than they are in Britain, or at any rate in
England. Take the word Socialism, for example: that
means to some of us, first and foremost a social ideal of
brotherhood and justice. We have had our Christian
Socialists. On the Continent, however, Socialism is un
compromisingly anti-religious, or almost a substitute for
religion; and Communism is seen as a natural
development from it. This is the Socialism the
Archbishop is writing about. And when he rejects
Liber a lism , he is not thinking of the Li bera l Party, or of
the virtue of liberality, but of that religious liberalism
which exhalts human liberty above the claims of God or
of His Church, and of which Newman said that it had
been his life's work to combat. It is because Vatican II's
Declaration on Religious Liberty contains phrases that
encourage this liberalism that the Archbishop asks for its
revision. Modernism, too, has a special meaning: not a
simple urge to be up-to-date, but the particular system of
ideas which was condemned by Pope Pius X on the
ground that, on the pretext of making Revelation
acceptable to the modern mentality, it destroyed the very
foundations of belief in revealed truth. And while making
these clarifications, we may mention the word Revolution
as used by the author. Sometimes he is referring to the
French Revolution of 1789 with its slogan of Liberty,
Equality and Fraternity; but he also, especially in chapter
15, uses the word to indicate the general revolt against
the Church which made its appearance in some aspects of
the Renaissance, was nurtured by the Freemasons, burst
out violently in 1789, and proceeded to produce Marxist
Communism. The same rejection of God and His
Revelation inspires all these phrases.
A Catholic facing the evidence of disintegration
presented here might well be tempted to despair.
Archbishop Lefebvre does not despair because he knows
that the Church, despite all appearances, is guaranteed
by Our Lord Jesus Christ as being His chosen
representative on earth, by which He conveys to all men
the benefits of the Redemption. It is this unwavering
faith that gives him what is perhaps his outstanding
quality, the courage that was needed to stand firm,
isolated, against the urgent pressures of those he had
been taught to revere as defenders of the Faith, and who
were ready to welcome him with open arms in return for
some simple compromise. So exposed a position is
perilous, and he has a right to expect the support of the
prayers of those of us who recognise his special service to
the Church: that of t ra ining priests and nuns who
preserve the tried traditions that are the foundation on
which an eventual, true renewal can be based.
Though responsibility for the translation is mine, it has

been a team enterprise, which will have its sufficient
reward in the appearing of the book. Credit for it is due
first to Mr. John Noon, who broke the back of the work,
and also, for different sections, to Mr. Malcolm Potter
and to Fr. Philip Stark; and not least to Mrs. Ann Nott
for typing the scripts for printing.
Revd. Michael C. Crowdy

1. "Why are Catholics Confused?"
Who can deny that Catholics in the latter part of the

twentieth century are confused? A glance at what has
happened in the Church over the past twenty years is
enough to convince anyone that this is a relatively recent
phenomenon. Only a short time ago the path was clearly
marked: either one followed it or one did not. One had
the faith - or perhaps had lost it - or had never had it. But
he who had it - who had entered the Church through
baptism, who had renewed his baptismal promises
around the age of twelve and had received the Holy Ghost
on the day of his confirmation - such a person knew what
he had to believe and what he had to do.
Many today no longer know. They hear all sorts of
astonishing statements in the churches, they read things
contrary to what was always taught, and doubt has crept
into their minds.
OnJune 30, 1968, at the close of the Year of Faith, His
Holiness Pope Paul VI made a profession of the Catholic
Faith, in the presence of all the bishops of in Rome and
hundreds of thousands of the faithful. In his introductory
remarks, he put us on guard against attacks on Catholic
doctrine which, he said, "give rise, as we regretfully see
tod ay , to trouble and confusion in many faithful souls."
The same word crops up in an allocation of His
Holiness Pope John Paul lIon February 6, 1981:
"Christians today, in large part, feel lost, perplexed,
confused and even deceived." The Holy Father sum
marized the underlying causes of the trouble as follows:
"We see spread abroad ideas contrary to the truth which
God has revealed and which the Church has always
taught. Real heresies have appeared in dogma and moral
theology, stirring doubt, confusion, rebellion. Even the
liturgy has been harmed. Christians have been plunged
into an intellectual and moral illuminism, a sociological
Christianity, without clear dogma or objective morality. "
This confusion is seen everywhere - in conversations, in
books, in newspapers, in radio and television broadcasts,
10 AN OPEN LETTER TO CONFUSED CATHOLICS
in the behaviour of Catholics, which shows up as a sharp

decline in the practice of the faith, as statistics reveal, a
dissatisfaction with the Mass and the sacraments, a
general relaxation of morals.
We naturally ask, therefore, what brought on this state
of things. For every effect there is a cause. Has faith been
weakened by a disappearance of generosity of soul, by a
taste for enjoyment, an attraction to the pleasures of life
and the manifold distractions which the modern world
offers? These cannot be the real reasons, because they
have always been with us in one way or another. The
rapid decline in religious practice comes rather from the
new spirit which has been introduced into the Church
and which has cast suspicion over all past teachings and
life of the Church. All this was based on the
unchangeable faith of the Church, handed down by
catechisms which were recognized by all bishops.
The faith was based on certitudes. The certitudes have
been overturned and confusion has resulted.
Let us take one example: the Church taught - and the
faithful believed - that the Catholic religion was the one
true religion. It was, in fact, established by God Himself,
while other religions are the work of men. Consequently,
the Christian must avoid all contact with false religions
and, furthermore, do all he can to bring adherents of
false religions to the religion of Christ.
Is this still true? Indeed it is! Truth cannot change - else
it never was the truth. No new fact, no theological or
scientific discovery - if there can even be such a thing as a
theological discovery - can ever make the Catholic
religion any less the only means of salvation.
But now we have the Pope himself attending religious
ceremonies in false religions, praying and preaching in
the churches of heretical sects. Television conveys to the
whole world pictures of these astonishing events. The
faithful no longer understand.
Martin Luther - I shall return to him later in these
pages - cut entire nations off from the Church, pitched
Europe into a spiritual and political turmoil which de
stroyed the Catholic hierarchy over wide areas, invented a
WHY ARE CATHOLICS CONFUSED? 11
false doctrine of salvation and a false doctrine of the

sacraments. His revolt against the Church became the
model for all revolutionaries after him who would throw
Europe and the whole world into disorder. It is impossible
to make Luther, as they want to do now after five
hundred years, into a prophet or doctor of the Church,
since he is not a saint.
If I read Documentation Catholique or the diocesan
papers, I find there, from the Joint Catholic-Lutheran
Commission, officially recognized by the Vatican,
statements like this:
"Among the ideas of the Second V atican Council, we
can see gathered together much of what Luther asked
for, such as the following: description of the Church as
"the people of God" (a leading idea of the new Canon
Law - a democratic, no longer hieratic, idea); accent on
the priesthood of all baptized; the right of the individual
to freedom of religion. Other demands of Luther in his
time can be considered as being met in the theology and
practice of the Church today: use of the common
language in the liturgy, possibility of Communion under
two species, a renewal of the theology and celebration of
the Eucharist."
Quite a statement! Meeting the demands of Luther,
who declared himself the resolute and mortal enemy of
the Mass and of the pope! To gather together things
requested by a blasphemer who said: "1 declare that all
brothels, murders, thefts, adulteries, are less evil than
this abominable Mass!" From such an extravagant
summary, we can draw only one conclusion: either we
must condemn the Second Vatican Council which
authorized it, or we must condemn the Council of Trent
and all the popes who, since the sixteenth century, have
declared Protestantism heretical and schismatic.
It is understandable that Catholics are confused by
such a turn of events. But there are so many others! In a
few years they have seen a transformation in the heart
and substance of religious practices which adults have
known from early childhood. In the churches, the altars
have been demolished or replaced by tables, which are
12 Ar\ OPEN LETTER TO CONFUSED CATHOLICS
often portable and disappear when not in use. The

tabernacle no longer occupies the place of honour: most
of the time it is hidden, perhaps perched on a post, to one
side; when it remains in the centre, the priest turns his
back to it during the Mass. Celebrant and faithful face
each other and dialogue. Anyone may touch the sacred
vessels, which are often replaced by bread-baskets,
platters, ceramic bowls. Laity, including women,
distribute Communion, which is received in the hand.
The Body of Christ is treated with a lack of reverence
which casts doubt on the truth of transubstantiation.
The sacraments are administered in a manner which
varies from place to place; I will cite as examples the age
for baptism and confirmation, variations in the nuptial
blessing, introduction of chants and readings which have
nothing to do with the liturgy, but are borrowed from
other religions or a purely secular literature, sometimes
simply to express political ideas.
Latin, the universal language of the Church, and
Gregorian Chant have generally disappeared. All the
hymns have been replaced by modern songs in which it is
not uncommon to find the same rhythms as in places of
entertainment.
Catholics have been surprised also by the sudden dis
appearance of religious garb, as if priests and religious
were ashamed of looking like what they are.
Parents who send their children to catechism discover
that the truths of the Faith are no longer taught, even the
most basic: the Holy Trinity, the mystery of the
Incarnation, original sin, the Immaculate Conception.
Hence the feeling of profound disorientation: Is all of this
no longer true, out-of-date, passe? Christian virtues are
no longer even mentioned. Where can you find a
catechism speaking of humility, chastity, mortification?
The faith has become a fluid concept, charity a kind of
universal solidarity, and hope is, above all, hope for a
better world.
Novelties like these are not the kind which, in the
human situation, appear at a certain moment in time, so
that we get accustomed to them and assimilate them after
WHY ARE CATHOLICS CONFUSED? 13
an initial period of surprise and uncertainty. In the

course of a human life, ways of doing things change. If I
were still a missionary in Africa, I would go there by
plane and no longer by boat - if indeed you could find a
steamship company still in operation. In this sense, we
can say that one should live in one's own time; one is
really forced to do so.
But those Catholics on whom they tried to impose
novelties in the spiritual and supernatural order, on the
same principle, realized it was not possible. You do not
change the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the sacraments
founded by Jesus Christ; you do not change the truth
revealed once and for all; you do not replace one dogma
with another.
The pages which follow try to answer the questions
you are asking yourselves; you who have known another
face of the Church. I shall also try to enlighten the young
people born after the Council and to whom the Catholic
community does not offer what they have a right to
expect from it. I would like to address myself, finally, to
the unconcerned and the agnostics, whom the grace of
God will touch some day or another, but who by then
may find the churches without priests, and a teaching
which does not correspond to the needs of their souls.
Then there is a question which, by all evidence,
interests everyone, if I can judge by the attention it gets in
the general press, especially in France. (The journalists
are also showing some confusion.) A few headlines: "Is
Christianity Dying?" "Will Time Work Against the
Religion of Jesus Christ?" "Will There Still Be Priests in
the Year 2000?"
These questions I hope also to answer, not with any
new theory of my own, but relying on unbroken Catholic
Tradition - unbroken, yet so neglected in recent years
that to many readers it will seem no doubt like something
entirely new.
2. "They are Changing our Religion"
Firstly, I must dispell a misunderstanding so as not to

have to return to it. I am not the head of a movement,
even less the head of a particular church. I am not, as
they never stop writing, "the leader of the tradition
alists". They have come to describe certain persons as
"Lefebvrists", as though it were a case of a party or a
school. This is an abuse of language.
I have no personal doctrine in the matter of religion.
All my life I have held to what I taught at the French
seminary at Rome, namely Catholic doctrine according
to the interpretation given it by the teaching authority of
the Church from century to century, since the death of
the last Apostle which marked the ending of Revelation.
There should be nothing in that to feed the appetite for
sensations of journalists and, through them, current
public opinion. Yet, on the 29th August 1976, the whole
of France was excited on learing that I was going to say
Mass at Lille. What was so extraordinary about a bishop
celebrating the Holy Sacrifice? I had to preach before a
panoply of microphones and each of my remarks was
greeted as if it were a striking declaration. Yet what did I
say beyond what any other bishop could have said?
There lies the key to the enigma: the other bishops had
been for a number of years no longer saying the same
things. How often, for example, have you heard them
speaking of the social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ?
My personal experience never ceases to amaze me.
These bishops for the most part were fellow-students with
me in Rome, trained in the same manner. And then, all
of a sudden I found myself alone. But I have invented
nothing new; I was carrying on. Cardinal Garrone even
said to me one day: "They deceived us at the French
Seminary in Rome". Deceived us in what? Had he not
himself taught the children of his catechism class
thousands of times, before the Council, the Act of Faith:
"My God, I firmly believe all the truths Thou has re
vealed and that Thy Church doth teach, because Thou
-THEY ARE CHANGING OUR RELIGION 15
canst neither deceive nor be deceived"?

How have all these bishops been able to metamorphose
themselves in this manner? I can see only one explan
ation: they were always in France and they let themselves
become gradually infected. In Africa I was protected. I
came back the year of the Council, when the harm had
already been done. Vatican II only opened the gates
which were holding back the devastating flood. In no
time at all, even before the end of the fourth session, it
was catastrophic. Everything, almost, was to be swept
away; prayer first of all.
Any Christian who has an instinct for God, a respect
for Him, must be shocked by the manner in which
prayers are said now. Learning prayers by heart, as we
did, is now denigrated as "parrot-fashion". Children are
no longer taught the words nor do they appear now in the
catechisms, except for the Our Father. And even that is
in a new version, of Protestant inspiration, which makes
the child address God as "tu". To do this systematically is
not a sign of great reverence, and is foreign to the spirit of
our language, which offers us a choice of styles according
to whether we are addressing a superior or a parent or a
friend. And in the same post-conciliar Our Father one
asks God not to "lead us into temptation", an expression
that is equivocal, at least; while our traditional French
version is an improvement upon the Latin, which is
rather clumsily based on the Hebrew. What progress is
there in this? The familiar style of speech has also invaded
the whole body of vernacular liturgy: the New Sunday
Missal makes it exclusive and obligatory, though one can
see no reason for a change so contrary to French style and
custom.
Tests have been made in Catholic schools with children
of twelve or thirteen. Only a few knew the Our Father by
heart (in French, naturally) and a few knew their Hail
Mary. With one or two exceptions these children did not
know the Apostles' Creed, the I Confess, the Acts of
Faith, Hope, Charity and Contrition, or the Angelus or
the Memorare. How could they know them, when most of
them had never even heard them said? Prayer must be
"spontaneous", we must speak to God out of the

abundance of the heart, so they tell us now; and they
scorn the marvellous educative system of the Church
which has produced and perfected all these prayers,
which have been the support of the greatest saints.
How many still practice and encourage morning and
evening prayers together in the family, or the saying of
the prayers of blessing and thanksgiving at meals? I have
learnt that in many Catholic schools they no longer want
the prayer at the start of the lesson, on the pretext that
some of the pupils are unbelievers or belong to other
religions, and that it would not do to affront their
consciences or display a triumphalist spirit. They
congratulate themselves on receiving in these schools a
large majority of non-Catholics and even non-Christians,
and doing nothing to lead them to God. The young
Catholics, meanwhile, must conceal their faith: this on
the pretext of respecting the opinions of their school
mates.
The genuflection is now practised only by a small
number of the faithful; it has been replaced by a nod of
the head, or more often by nothing at all. One enters a
church and sits down. The furniture has been changed,
the prie-dieus broken up for firewood. Often seats have
been installed similar to those in cinemas, thereby
allowing the public to be more comfortably seated when
the church is used for a concert. I have been told of the
case of the Blessed Sacrament chapel in a big parish
church in Paris, which used to be visited by a number of
people working nearby during their lunch hour. One day
it was closed for work to be carried out. When the doors
were opened again the prie-dieus had disappeared. On a
comfortable pile carpet were deep upholstered seats,
evidently expensive and of the sort found in the reception
foyers of big companies or air-lines. The comportment of
the faithful changed at once: some knelt on the carpet,
but most made themselves comfortable and meditated
before the tabernacle cross-legged. The parish clergy
certainly had some intention in their minds; one does not
embark on expensive changes or alterations without
"THEY ARE CHANGING OUR RELIGION" 17
thinking of what one is doing. What we are seeing here is

the desire to modify the relationship of man to God in the
direction of familiarity and casualness, as if we were
dealing with Him as equals. How can one acquire a
conviction that one is in the presence of the Creator and
sovereign Lord of all things, if one suppresses the gestures
that embody the "virtue of Religion"? Does one not also
run the risk of diminishing the sense of the Real Presence
in the tabernacle?
Ca tholics are likewise bewildered by the obstinate
partiality to banality and even vulgarity, in the manner in
which places of worship are treated. Everything that
contributed to the beauty of the buildings and the
splendour of the ceremonies is decried as "triumphalism" .
The decor must now be nearer to that of every-day life.
But in the ages of faith they offered to God the most
precious things they had. It was in the village church that
were to be seen just those things that do not belong to the
every day world: pieces of gold work, paintings, silks,
lace, embroidery, and the statues of the Blessed Virgin
crowned with jewels. Christians made financial sacrifices
to honour Almighty God in the best way they could. A1J
this was conducive to prayer and lifted up the soul. This is
a natural proceeding for mankind: when the three Magi
went to visit the poor crib at Bethlehem they brought
with them gold, frankincense and myrrh. Catholics are
degraded by being made to pray in commonplace sur
roundings, multi-purpose halls that have nothing to
distinguish them from any other public place, sometimes
not even coming up to that. Here and there one finds a
magnificent gothic or romanesque church abandoned
and a sort of bare and dreary barn built to one side. Or
else they organise 'domestic eucharists' in dining-rooms
or even in kitchens. I have been told of one of these,
celebrated in the home of a deceased person in the
presence of his family and friends. After the ceremony
the chalice was removed and then, on the same table
covered with the same table-cloth, they set up a buffet
meal. At the same time, only a few hundred yards away,
only the birds were singing to the Lord around the 13th
century church decorated with magnificent stained-glass

windows.
Those readers who remember the years before the war
will certainly recall the fervour of the Corpus Christi
processions with their numerous stations, the chants, the
thuribles, the monstrance gleaming in the sun, carried by
the priest under the gold-embroidered canopy; the
banners, the flowers, the bells. The sense of adoration
was born into the children's souls and ingrained there for
life. This primordial aspect of prayer seems greatly
neglected. Do I hear somebody still talking about
necessary evolution and new habits of life? But traffic
problems do not prevent street demonstrations, and the
demonstrators are not inhibited about expressing their
political opinions or their demands, whether just or not.
Why should God alone be thrust aside, and why must
only Christians refrain from rendering Him the public
worship which is His due?
The almost total disappearance in France of
processions is not caused by a lack of interest on the part
of the faithful. It is prescribed by the new pastoral theory
which, however, is ceaselessly urging the 'active partic
ipation of the People of God' . In 1969 a parish-priest in
the Oise department of France was expelled by his bishop
who had forbidden the organising of the traditional
procession of Corpus Christi. The procession took place
nevertheless and drew ten times more people than the
village has inhabitants. Can one then say that the new
pastoral style which is, in any case, in contradiction on
this point with the conciliar Constitution on the Sacred
Liturgy, is in accordance with the deep longings of those
Christians who remained attached to such forms of piety?
And what are they offered in exchange? Very little,
because services have been greatly reduced. Priests no
longer offer the Holy Sacrifice each day; and when they
do, they concelebrate together, and the number of masses
has diminished accordingly. In country districts it is
practically impossible to attend Mass during the week; on
Sundays a car is needed to travel out to the locality whose
turn it is to receive the 'sector priest' . Many churches in
"THEY ARE CHANGING OUR RELIGION" 19
France are permanently closed, others only opened a few

times each year. Add to that the crisis in vocations, or
rather the crisis in responding to vocations, and the
practice of religion becomes yearly more difficult. The
large towns are in general better served; but most of the
time it is impossible to receive communion, on First
Fridays or First Saturdays of the month for example.
Naturally there is no longer any question of daily Mass; in
many urban parishes Masses only take place by prior
order, for a specific group at a pre-arranged time, and in
such a manner that the passer-by coming in by chance
feels himself to be a stranger at a celebration studded
with allusions to the activities and life of the group.
Discredit has been thrown upon what are called
individual celebrations in opposition to community
celebrations, but in reality the community has split into
small cells. It is quite common for a priest to say Mass in
the home of someone engaged in Catholic Action or other
activities, in the presence of a group of activists. Or else
one discovers the time-table for Sunday morning split up
between different language groups; a Portuguese Mass,
French Mass, Spanish Mass. In these times when foreign
travel is commonplace Catholics find themselves
attending Masses where they do not understand a single
word, in spite of being told that it is not possible to pray
without 'participating'. How could they?
No more Masses, or very few; no more processions, no
more Benedictions of the Blessed Sacrament, no more
Vespers. Public prayer is reduced to its most simple
expression. Even when the faithful have overcome the
difficulties of times and travelling, what will they find to
slake their spiritual thirst? I will speak further on about
the liturgy and the serious alterations it has undergone.
For the moment, let us consider only the obvious outward
appearances of public prayer. All too frequently, the
atmosphere of the ' celebration' offends Catholic
religious feelings. There is the intrusion of secular
rhythms with all kinds of percussion instruments, guitars
and saxophones. A musician responsible for sacred music
in a diocese of northern France, supported by a number
of leading personalities in the world of music wrote: "In

spite of what it is currently called, the music of these
songs is not modern: this musical style is not new, but has
been played in the most profane places and surroundings
(cabarets, music halls, often for more or less lascivious
dances with foreign names). The people are led on to
rock or swing. They all feel an urge to dance about. That
sort of "body language" is certainly alien to our western
culture, unfavourable to contemplation and its origins
are rather suspect. Most of the time our congregations,
which already find it hard not to confuse the crochets and
the quavers in a 6/8 bar, do not respect the rhythm; then
one no longer feels like dancing, but with the rhythm
gone to pieces, the habitual poorness of the melodic line
becomes all the more noticeable."
What has happened to prayer in all that? Happily it
appears that in more than one place people have
returned to less barbaric customs. People have then
submitted, those who wish to sing, to the productions of
official organisations specialising in church music. For
them, there is no question of making use of the
marvellous heritage of past centuries. The usual
melodies, always the same, are of the most indifferent
inspiration. The more elaborate pieces, executed by
choirs, show a secular influence, and excite the feelings
rather than penetrate the soul as plainchant does. The
words are all new, using a new voca bulary, as if a flood
twenty years ago had destroyed all the anitphonaries from
which, even if they had wanted to make something new,
they could have drawn inspiration; they adopt the style of
the moment and are quickly outmoded, in a very short
time being no longer comprehensible. Large numbers of
recordings purposely designed for the animation of
parishes give out paraphrases of the psalms and are
frankly presented as such, thereby supplanting the sacred
text of divine inspiration. Why not sing the psalms them
selves?
A novelty appeared a little while ago: posters placed in
church porches reading "to praise God, clap your
hands". So during the celebration, at a sign from the
THEY ARE CHANGING OUR RELIGION 21
leader, the congregation raise their hands above their

heads and clap rhythmically and loudly, producing an
unfamiliar din within the sanctuary. This kind of
innovation, unconnected even with our secular habits,
which attempts to put an artificial action into the litugy,
will no doubt be gone tomorrow: it contributes however
to discourage Catholics and to increase their confusion.
Nobody is obliged to attend 'Gospel Nights' but what
can one do when the few Sunday Masses are infected with
these lamentable practices?
The pastorale d'ensemble (ministry to the assembly) as
they call it, constrains the faithful to adopt these new
gestures in which they see no benefit and which go against
their nature. Above all, everything must be done in a
collective manner, with echanges or sharing - of speech,
of views, on the Gospel, and of handshakes too. People go
along with this half-heartedly, as statistics show. The very
latest figures indicate a further falling-off, from 1977 to
1983, in attendance at the Eucharist, whereas personal
prayer shows a slight increase'. The pastorale d 'ensemble
has not, therefore, won the people over. Here is what I
read in a parish magazine in the Paris area:
"From time to time during the last two years the 9.30
a.m. Mass has been in a rather special style, inasmuch as
the proclaiming of the Gospel was followed by an echange
for which those present formed groups of about ten
persons. The first time this kind of celebration was tried,
69 people joined in sharing groups and 138 remained
outside. One would have thought that with the help of
time there would have been an improvement. This has
not been the case". The parish team then organised a
meeting to see whether or not to continue with the
"Masses with sharing".
One can understand how the two-thirds of the
parishioners who had so far resisted the post-Conciliar
innovations were not enthusiastic about these improvised
chatterings in the middle of Mass. How difficult it is to be
a Catholic nowadays! The liturgy in French, even without
echanges, deafens the congregation with a flood of words
so that many complain that they can no longer pray
22 AN OPEN LETTER TO CONFUSED CATHOLiCS
during Mass. When, then, will they pray?

The confused faithful are offered recipes which are
always accepted by their bishops provided that they
detach them from Christian spirituality. Yoga and Zen
are the strangest, a disastrous orientalism which,
claiming to lead to a "hygiene of the soul", directs
devotion into false ways. Again, what about the abuses of
"body-language" which degrade the pesonality by
exalting the body at the expense of elevation towards
God? These new fashions, along with many others, have
been introduced even into contemplative monasteries;
and they are extremely dangerous. They show how right
are those we hear say, "They are changing our religion".
1 Poll Madame Figaro - Sofres, Sep. 1983. The first question was "00 you go to
communion once a week or more, or about once a month?" This corresponds more or
less to attendance at Mass, since everybody now communicates. Replies in the
affirmative had dropped from 16% to 9%.
3. What They are Doing to the Mass
I have before me some photos published in Catholic

newspapers representing the Mass as it is now often said.
Looking at the first photo I find it difficult to understand
at what moment of the Holy Sacrifice it has been taken.
Behind an ordinary wooden table, which does not appear
very clean and which has no cloth covering it, two persons
wearing suits and ties elevate or present, one a chalice,
the other a ciborium. The text informs me they are
priests, one of them the federal chaplain of Catholic
Action. On the same side of the table, close to the first
celebrant are two girls wearing trousers, and near the
second celebrant two boys in sweaters. A guitar is placed
against a stool.
In another photo the scene is the corner of a room
which might be the main room of a youth club. The
priest is standing, wearing a Taize-type alb, before a
milking-stool which serves as an altar; there is a large
earthenware bowl and a small mug of the same sort,
together with two lighted candle-ends. Five young people
are sitting cross-legged on the floor, one of them
strumming a guitar.
The third photo shows an event which occurred a few
years ago, the cruise of some ecologists who were seeking
to prevent the French atomic experiments on the Isle of
Mururoa. Amongst them was a priest who celebrated
Mass on the deck of the sailing ship, in the company of
two other men. All three are wearing shorts, one is even
stripped to the waist. The priest is raising the host, no
doubt for the elevation. He is neither standing nor
kneeling, but sitting or rather slumped against the boat's
superstructure.
One common feature emerges from these scandalous
pictures; the Eucharist is reduced to an every-day act, in
common-place surroundings, with common-place
utensils, attitudes and clothing. Now the so-called
Catholic magazines which are sold on church bookstalls
do not show these photos in order to criticize such ways,
but on the contrary to recommend them. "La Vie" even

considers that that is not enough. Using in its habitual
manner extracts from readers' letters to express its own
thoughts without having them attributed to itself, it says
"The liturgical reform must go further ... the unneces
sary repetitions, the same form of words ever repeated, all
this regulation holds back creativeness". What ought the
Mass to be? The following gives a hint: "Our problems
are manifold, our difficulties increasing and the Church
still seems to be remote from them. Often we come out of
Mass tired. There is a sort of gap between our daily life,
our present worries, and the sort of life suggested to us on
Sundays. "
Certainly people come away tired from a Mass which
strives to bring itself down to the level of mankind instead
of raising them up to God, and which, because it is
wrongly conceived does not permit them to rise above
their "problems". The encouragement given to go even
further demonstrates a deliberate intention to destroy
what is sacred. The Catholic is thereby dispossessed of
something which he needs and longs for, because he is
drawn to honour and revere all which relate to God. How
much more is this the case with the elements of the
Sacrifice which are to become His Body and His Blood!
Why make hosts that are grey or brown by leaving in part
of the bran? Are they trying to make us forget that phrase
omitted from the new offertory: hane im.maculatam
hostiam, this immaculate and spotless host?
That, however, is merely a minor innovation. We
frequently hear of the consecration of ordinary bread,
leavened with yeast, instead of the pure wheat flour
prescribed, the exclusive use of which has again been re
iterated in the papal instruction "Inaestimabile Donum".
All bounds have now been passed, there has even been an
American bishop who recommends little cakes containing
milk, eggs, baking-powder, honey and margarine. The
desacralisation extends to the persons vowed to the sevice
of God, with the disappearance of the ecclesiastical habit
for priests and religious, the use of christian names,
familiarity and a secularised way of living, all in the name
WHAT THEY ARE DOING TO THE MASS 25
of a new principle and not, as they have tried to make us
believe, for practical needs. In proof of which I mention
those nuns who leave their enclosure to live in rented flats
in town, thereby doubling their expenses - abandoning
the veil and incurring the cost of regular sessions at the
hair-dressers.
The loss of what is sacred leads also to sacrilege. A
newspaper in the west of France informs us that the
national contest for band-girls was held in 1980 in the
Vendee region of France. A Mass took place during
which the band-girls danced and some of them then dis
tributed communion. Moreover, the ceremony was
finished off with a roundelay in which the celebrant took
part wearing priests' vestments. It is not my intention
here to establish a catalogue of the abuses that are to be
met with, but to give a few examples showing why
catholics today have so much at which to be perplexed
and even scandalised. I am revealing nothing secret, the
television has taken upon itself to spread in people's
homes, during the Sunday morning programmes, the
inadmissible off-handedness that the bishops publicly
display with regard to the Body of Christ: witness that
mass televised the 22nd N ovember 1981 where the
ciborium was replaced by baskets which the congregation
passed from one to another to be finally placed on the
floor with what remained of the Sacred Species.
In Poitiers on Holy Thursday the same year, a big
spectacular concelebration consisted of the
indiscriminate consecration of loaves and jugs of wine
upon the tables from which everyone came and helped
himself.
Concerts of secular music held in churches are now
generalised. Places of worship are even made available
for rock-music events, with all the excesses that these
habitually involve. Some churches and cathedrals have
been given over to debauchery, drugs, and filth of all
kinds, and it is not the local clergy who have then
performed ceremonies of expiation but groups of the
faithful rightly disgusted by these scandals. How can the
bishops and priests who have encouraged these things not
fear to bring down divine punishment upon themselves

and their people? I t is already apparent in the fruitless
ness of their work. It is all wasted because the Holy
Sacrifice of the Mass, desecrated as it is, no longer confers
grace and no longer transmits it. The contempt for the
real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is the most
flagrant sign by which the new mentality, no longer
Catholic, expresses itself. Even without going as far as the
rowdy excesses I have just mentioned, this is noticeable
every day. The Council of Trent explained without any
possible doubt that Our Lord is present in the smallest
particles of the consecrated bread. What are we to think
then of communion in the hand? When a communion
plate is used, even if the communions are few in number,
there are always particles remaining. In consequence, the
particles now remain in the communicants' hands. The
faith of many is shaken by this, especially that of
children.
The new way can only have one explanation; if people
come to Mass to break the bread of friendship, of the
community meal, of the common faith, then it is quite
natural that no excessive precautions should be taken. If
the Eucharist is a symbol expressing simply the memory
of a past event and the spiritual presence of Our Lord, it
is quite logical not to worry about a few crumbs which
may fallon the floor. But if it is a matter of the presence
of God Himself, OUT Creator, as the faith of the Church
would have it, how can we understand that such practices
be allowed and even encouraged, in spite of documents
fresh from Rome? The idea which they are endeavouring
to insinuate in this way is a Protestant one against which
catholics not yet contaminated are rebelling. To impose
it more effectively, the faithful are obliged to
communicate standing.
Is it fitting that when we go to receive Christ before
whom, says St. Paul, every knee shall bow, in heaven, on
earth and under the earth, we should do so without the
least sign of respect or allegiance? Many priests no longer
genuflect before the Holy Eucharist; the new rite of Mass
encourages this. I can only see two possible reasons; either
WHAT THEY ARE DOING TO THE MASS 27
an immense pride which makes us treat God as if we were

His equals, or else the certitude that He is not really
present in the Eucharist.
Am I just getting up a case against the so-called
Conciliar Church? No, I am not inventing anything.
Listen to the way the Dean of the Faculty of Theology of
Strasbourg expresses himself. "We also speak of the
presence of a speaker or of an actor, meaning thereby a
quality different from a simple geographical 'being
there' . After all, someone can be present by a symbolic
act which he does not accomplish physically but which
other people accomplish by creative fidelity to his funda
mental intention. For example, the Festival of Bayreuth
realises without doubt a presence of Richard Wagner
which is greatly superior in intensity to that which may be
manifested by occasional recitals or concerts devoted to
his music. It is within this last perspective, it seems to me,
that we should place the eucharistic presence of Christ. "
To compare the mass with the Bayreuth Festival! No,
we certainly do not agree, either regarding the words or
the music.
4. The Mass of All Times versus the
Mass of Our Time
In preparation for the 1981 Eucharist Congress a quest

ionnaire was distributed, the first question of which was
this:
"Of these two definitions: ' The Holy Sacrifice of the
Mass' and ' Eucharistic Meal' , which one do you adopt
spontaneously?" There is a great deal that could be said
about this way of questioning Catholics, giving them to
some extent the choice and appealing to their private
judgement in a subject where spontaneity has no place.
The definition of the Mass is not chosen in the same way
that one chooses a political party.
Alas! The insinuation does not result from a blunder on
the part of the person who drew up the questionnaire.
One has to accept that the liturgical reform tends to
replace the idea and the reality of the Sacrifice by the
reality of a meal. That is how one comes to speak of
eucharistic celebration, or of a "Supper"; but the
expression "Sacrifice" is much less used. It has almost
totally disappeared from catechism handbooks just as it
has from sermons. It is absent from Canon No 2,
attributed to St Hippolytus.
This tendancy is connected with what we have
discovered concerning the Real Presence: if there is no
longer a sacrifice, there is no longer any need for a
victim. The victim is present in view of the sacrifice. To
make of the Mass a memorial or fraternal meal is the
Protestant error. What happened in the 16th century?
Precisely what is taking place today. Right from the start
they replaced the altar by a table, removed the crucifix
from it, and made the "president of the assembly" turn
round to face the congregation. The setting of tile
Protestant Lord's Supper is found in Pierres Viuantes, the
prayer- book prepared by the bishops in France which all
children attending catechism are obliged to use:
"Christians meet together to celebrate the Eucharist. It is
THE MASS OF ALL TIMES VERSUS THE MASS OF OUR TIME 29
the Mass ... They proclaim the faith of the Church, they
pray for the whole world, they offer the bread and the
wine. The priest who presides at the assembly says the
great prayer of thanksgiving" .
Now in the catholic religion it is the priest who
celebrates Mass; it is he who offers the bread and the
wine. The notion of president has been borrowed directly
from Protestantism. The vocablulary follows the change
of ideas. Formerly, we would say "Monsignor Lustiger
will celebrate a Pontifical Mass". I am told that at
Radio Notre Dame, the phrase used at present is "Jean
Marie Lustiger will preside at a concelebration." Here is
how they speak about Mass in a brochure issued by the
Conference of Swiss Bishops: "The Lord's Supper
achieves firstly communion with Christ. It is the same
communion that Jesus brought about during his life on
earth when he sat at table with sinners, and has been
continued in the Eucharistic meal since the day of the
Resurrection. The Lord invites his friends to come
together and He will be present amongst them."
To that every Catholic is obliged to reply in a categoric
manner, No! the Mass is not that. It is not the contin
uation of a meal similar to that which Our Lord invited
Saint Peter and a few disciples one morning on the lake
side, after his resurrection. "When they came to land
they saw a charcoal fire there and a fish laid thereon and
bread. Jesus said to them: Come and dine. And none of
them durst ask Him 'Who art thou?' Knowing that it
was the Lord. And Jesus cometh and taketh the bread
and giveth them, and fish in like manner." Oohn 23: 19
13).
The communion of the priest and the faithful is a
communion in the victim who has offered himself up on
the altar of sacrifice. This is of solid stone; if not it
contains at least the altar stone which is a stone of sacri
fice. Within are laid relics of the martyrs because they
have offered their blood for their Master. This
communion of the blood of Our Lord with the blood of
the martyrs encourages us also to offer up our lives.
If the Mass is a meal I understand the priest turning
towards the congregation. One does not preside at a meal

with one's back to the guests. But a sacrifice if offered to
God, not to the congregation. This is the reason why the
priest at the head of the faithful turns towards God and
the crucifix over the altar.
At every opportunity emphasis is laid on what the New
Sunday Missal calls the ' narrative of the institution'.
The Jean-Bart Centre, the official centre for the arch
diocese of Paris, states" At the centre of the Mass, there is
a narrative". Again, No! The Mass is not a narrative, it is
an action.
Three indispensible conditions are needed for it to be
the continuation of the Sacrifice of the Cross: the
oblation of the victim, the transubstantiation which
renders the victim present effectively and not
symbolically, and the celebration by a priest, consecrated
by his priesthood, in place of the High Priest who is Our
Lord.
Likewise the Mass can obtain the remission of sins. A
simple memorial, a narrative of the institution
accompanied by a meal, would be far from sufficient for
this. All the supernatural virtue of the Mass comes from
its relationship to the Sacrifice of the Cross. If we no
longer believe that, then we no longer believe anything
about Holy Church, the Church would no longer have
any reason for existing, we would no longer claim to be
catholics. Luther understood very clearly that the Mass is
the heart and soul of the Church. He said: "Let us destroy
the Mass and we shall destroy the Church".
Now we can see that the Novus Ordo Missae, that is to
say the new order adopted after the Council, has been
drawn up on Protestant lines, or at any rate dangerously
close to them. For Luther the Mass was a sacrifice of
praise, that is to sayan act of praise, an act of
thanksgiving, but certainly not an expiatory sacrifice
which renews and applies the Sacrifice of the Cross. For
him, the Sacrifice of the Cross took place at a given
moment of history, it is the prisoner of that history; we
can only apply to ourselves Christ's merits by our faith in
his death and resurrection. Contrarily, the Church
maintains that this sacrifice is realised mystically upon

our altars at each Mass, in an unbloody manner by the
separation of the body and the blood under the species of
bread and wine. This renewal allows the merits of the
cross to be applied to the faithful there present,
perpetuating this source of grace in time and in space.
The Gospel of St Matthew ends with these words, "And
behold, I am with you all days, even until the end of the
world. "
The difference in conception is not slender. Efforts are
being made to reduce it, however, by the alteration of
Catholic doctrine of which we can see numerous signs in
the liturgy.
Luther has said "Worship used to be addressed to God
as a homage, henceforth it will be addressed to man to
console and enlighten him. The sacrifice used to have
pride of place but the sermon will supplant it." That
signified the introduction of the cult of man, and in the
church, the importance accorded to the "liturgy of the
word". If we open the new missals, this revolution has
been accomplished in them too. A reading has been
added to the two which existed, together with a
"universal prayer" often utilised for propagating political
or social ideas; taking the homily into account, we often
end up with a shift of balance towards the "word". Once
the sermon is ended, the Mass is very close to its end.
Within the Church the priest is marked with an
indelible "character" which makes of him an "alter
Christus": he alone can offer the Holy Sacrifice. Luther
considered the distinction between clergy and laity to the
"the first wall raised up by the Romanists"; all Christians
are priests, the pastor is only exercising a function in
presiding at the Evangelical Mass. In the Novus Ordo,
the "I" of the Celebrant has been replaced by "we"; it is
written everywhere that the faithful" celebrate", they are
associated with the acts of worship, they read the Epistle
and occasionally the Gospel, give out the communion,
sometimes preach the homily, which may be replaced by
"a dialogue by small groups upon the Word of God",
meeting together beforehand to "construct" the Sunday
Celebration. But this is only a first step; for several years,

we have heard of those responsible for diocesan organis
ations who have been putting forward propositions of this
nature: "It is not the ministers but the assembly who
celebrate" (handouts by the National Centre for Pastoral
Liturgy), or "The assembly is the prime subject of the
liturgy"; what matters is not the "functioning of the rites
but the image the assembly gives to itself and the
relationship the co-celebrants create between them
selves". (P. Gelineau, architect of the liturgical reform
and professor at the Paris Catholic Institute). If it is the
assembly which matters then it is understandable that
private masses should be discredited, which means that
priests no longer say them because it is less and less easy to
find an assembly, above all during the week. It is a
breach with the unchanging doctrine: that the Church
needs a multiplicity of Sacrifices of the Mass, both for the
application of the Sacrifice of the Cross and for all the
objects assigned to it, adoration, thanksgiving, propitia
tion I and impetration",
As if that were not enough, the objective of some is to
eliminate the priest entirely, which has given rise to the
notorious ADAP (Sunday Assemblies in the Absence of
the Priest). We can imagine the faithful gathering to pray
together in order to honour the Lord's Day; but these
ADAP are in reality a sort of "dry mass" lacking only the
consecration; and the lack, as one can read in a
document of the Regional Centre for Social and Religious
Studies at Lille, is only because "until further notice
orders lay people do not have the power to carry out
this act". The absence of the priest may even be inten
tional "so that the faithful can learn to manage for them
selves". Fr. Gelineau in "Demains la Liturgie" writes that
the ADAP are only an "educational transition until such
time as mentalities have changed" and he concludes with
disconcerting logic that there are still too many priests in
the church, "too many doubtless for things to evolve
quickly. "
IThe action of rendering God propitious.
2 The action of obtaining divine graces and blessings.
Luther suppressed the offertory; why offer the pure
and immaculate Host if there is no more sacrifice? In the
French Novus Ordo the offertory is practically non
existant; besides which it no longer has this name. The
New Sunday Missal speaks of the "prayers of present
ation". The formula used reminds one more of a thanks
giving, a thank-you for the fruits of the earth. To fully
realise this, it is sufficient to compare it with the formulas
traditionally used by the Church in which clearly appears
the propitiatory and expiatory nature of the Sacrifice
"which I offer you for my innumerable sins, offenses and
negligences, for all those here present and for all
Christians living and dead, that it may avail for my sal
vation and theirs for eternal life " . Raising the chalice, the
priest then says "We offer Thee Lord, the chalice of Thy
redemption, imploring Thy goodness to accept it like a
sweet perfume into the presence of Thy Divine Majesty
for our salvation and that of the whole world" .
What remains of that in the new Mass? This: "Blessed
are You, Lord, God of the Universe, you who give us this
bread, fruit of the earth and work of human hands. We
offer it to you; it will become the bread of life" and the
same for the wine which will become "our spiritual
drink". What purpose is served by adding, a little further
on: "Wash me of my faults Lord, purify me of my sin"
and "may our sacrifice, today, find grace before you"?
Which sin? Which sacrifice? What connection can the
faithful make between this vague presentation of the
offerings and the redemption that he is looking forward
to? I will ask another question: Why substitute for a text
that is clear and whose meaning is complete a series of
enigmatic and loosely bound phrases? If a need is found
for change, it should be for something better. These
incidental phrases which seem to make up for the
insufficiency of the "prayers of presentation" remind us
of Luther, who was at pains to arrange the changes with
caution. He retained as much as possible of the old
ceremonies, limiting himself to changing their meaning.
The Mass, to a great extent, kept its external appearance,
the people found in the churches nearly the same setting,
nearly the same rites, with slight changes made to please

them, because from then on people were consulted much
more than before; they were much more aware of their
importance in matters of worship, taking a more active
part by means of chant and praying aloud. Little by little
Latin gave way to German.
Doesn't all this remind you of something? Luther was
also anxious to create new hymns to replace "all the
mumblings of popery". Reforms always adopt the ap
pearance of cultural revolution.
In the Novus Ordo, the most ancient part of the
Roman Canon which goes back to apostolic times has
been reshaped to bring it closer to the Lutheran formula
of consecration, with both an addition and a suppression.
The translation in French has gone even further by
altering the meaning of the words "pro multis". Instead
of "my blood which shall be shed for you and for a great
number" we read "which shall be shed for you and for the
multitude". This does not mean the same thing and
theologically is not without significance.
You may have noticed that most priests nowadays
recite as one continuous passage the principal part of the
Canon which begins "the night before the passion He
took bread in His holy hands" without observing the
pause implied by the rubric of the Roman missal: "Hold
ing with both hands the host between the index-finger
and the thumb, he pronounces the words of the
Consecration, in a low but distinct voice and attentively
over the host". The tone changes, becomes intimatory,
the five words "Hoc est enim Corpus meum" operate the
miracle of transubstantiation, as do those that are said
for the consecration of the wine. The new missal asks the
celebrant to keep to the narrative tone of voice as if he
were indeed proceeding with a memorial. Creativity
being now the rule, we see some celebrants who recite the
text while showing the host all around or even breaking it
in an ostentatious manner so as to add the gesture to their
words and better illustrate their text. Two genuflections
out of the four having been suppressed, those which
remain being sometimes omitted, we have to ask ourselves
if the priest in fact has the feeling of consecrating, even

supposing that he really does have the intention to do so.
Then, from being puzzled catholics you become
worried catholics: is the Mass at which you have assisted
valid? Is the host you have received truly the Body of
Christ?
It is a grave problem. How can the ordinary faithful
decide? For the validity of a mass there exist essential
conditions; matter, form, intention and the validly
ordained priest. If these conditions are filled one cannot
see how to conclude invalidity. The prayers of the
offertory, the Canon and the priest's communion are nec
essary for the integrity of the sacrifice and the sacrament
but not for its validity. Cardinal Mindzenty pronouncing
in secret in his prison the words of Consecration over a
little bread and wine, so as to nourish himself with the
body and blood of Our Lord without being seen by his
guards, was certainly accomplishing the sacrifice and the
sacrament.
A Mass celebrated with the American bishop's honey
cakes of which I have spoken is certainly invalid, like
those where the words of consecration are seriously
altered or even omitted. I am not inventing anything, a
case has been recorded where a celebrant went to such an
extent of creativity that he quite simply forgot the
Consecration! But how can we assess the intention of the
priest? It is obvious that there are fewer and fewer valid
Masses as the faith of priests becomes corrupted and they
no longer have the intention to do what the Church
which cannot change her intention - has always done.
The present day training of those who are called
seminarians does not prepare them to accomplish valid
masses. They are no longer taught to consider the Holy
Sacrifice as the essential action of their priestly life.
Futhermore it can be said without any exaggeration
whatsoever that the majority of masses celebrated without
altar-stones, with common vessels, leavened bread, with
the introduction of profane words into the very body of
the Canon, etc are sacrilegious, and they prevent faith by
diminishing it. The desacralisation is such that these
masses can come to lose their supernatural character,

"the mystery of faith" and become no more than acts of
natural religion.
Your perplexity takes perhaps the following form: may
I assist at a sacrilegious mass which is nevertheless valid,
in the absence of any other, in order to satisfy my Sunday
obligation? The answer is simple: these masses cannot be
the object of an obligation; we must moreover apply to
them the rules of moral theology and canon law as
regards the participation or the attendance at an action
which endangers the faith or may be sacrilegious.
The new Mass, even when said with piety and respect
for the liturgical rules, is subject to the same reservations
since it is impregnated with the spirit of Protestantism. It
bears within it a poison harmful to the faith. That being
the case, the French Catholic of today finds himself in the
conditions of religious practice which prevail in
missionary countries. There, the inhabitants in some
regions are only able to attend Mass three or four times a
year. The faithful of our country should make the effort
to attend one each month at the Mass of all time, the true
source of grace and sanctification, in one of those places
where it continues to be held in honour.
lowe it to truth to say and affirm without fear of error
that the Mass codified by Pius V - and not invented by
him as some often say - express clearly these three
realities: sacrifice, real presence and the priesthood of the
clergy. It takes into account also, as the Council of Trent
has pointed out, the nature of mankind which needs
outside help to raise itself to meditation upon divine
things. The established customs have not been made at
random, they cannot be overthrown or abruptly abol
ished with impunity. How many of the faithful, how
many young priests, how many bishops have lost the faith
since the introduction of the reforms! One cannot thwart
nature and faith without them taking their revenge.
But as it happens, we are told, man is no longer what
he was a century ago; his nature has been changed by the
technical civilisation in which it is immersed. How
absurd! The innovators take good care not to reveal to the
faithful their desire to fall into line with Protestantism.
They invoke another argument: change. Here is how they
explain it at the theological evening school in Strasbourg:
"We must recognize that today we are confronted with
a veritable cultural mutation. One particular manner of
celebrating the memorial of The Lord was bound up with
a religious universe which is no longer ours." It is quickly
said, and everything disappears. We must start again
from scratch. Such are the sophisms they use to make us
change our faith. What is a "religious universe"? It would
be better to be frank and say: "a religion which is no
longer ours" .
5. "You're a Dinosaur!"
Catholics who feel that radical transformations are taking

place have difficulty in standing up against the relentless
propaganda they encounter (and which is common to all
revolutions). They are told, "You can't accept change.
Yet change is part of life. You're static. What was good
fifty years ago isn't suitable to tod ay's mentality or way of
life. You're hung up on the past. You can't change your
ways:" Many have given in to the reform to avoid this
criticism, unable to find an argument against the
sneering charge: "You're a reactionary, a dinosaur. You
can't move with the times!"
Cardinal Ottaviani said of the bishops, "They are
afraid of looking old. "
But we have never refused certain changes, adap
tations that bear witness to the vitality of the Church. In
the liturgy, people my age have seen some of these.
Shortly after I was born, St. Pius X made some im
provements, especially in giving more importance to the
temporal cycle in the missal, in lowering the age for First
Communion for children and in restoring liturgical
chant, which had fallen into disuse. Pius XII came along
and reduced the length of the eucharistic fast because of
difficulties inherent in modern life. For the same reason
he authorized afternoon and evening Masses, put the
Office of the Paschal Vigil on the evening of Holy
Saturday and rearranged the services of Holy Week in
general. John XXIII, before the Council, added his own
touches to the so-called rite of St. Pius V.
But none of this came anywhere near to what hap
pened in 1969, when a new concept of the Mass was intro
duced.
We are also criticized for being attached to external
forms of secondary importance, like Latin. This is a dead
language, they tell us, which no one understands - as if
Christians understood it in the sixteenth or nineteenth
centuries. Such negligence on the part of the Church (in
this view) in waiting so long to get rid of Latin! I think the
YOU'RE A DINOSAUR' 39
Church had her reasons. Yet we should not be surprised
that Catholics feel the need of a greater understanding of
the sacred texts, from which they draw spiritual
nourishment, and that they want to be more intimately
involved in the action taking place in front of them.
It was not to satisfy these desires, however, that the
vernacular was introduced from one end of the Holy
Sacrifice to the other. Reading the Epistle and Gospel in
the vernacular is an improvement and is practised at St.
Nicholas du Chardonnet in Paris and in the priories of
the Society which I founded. To go any further would
mean losing far more than would be gained, because
understanding the texts is not the ultimate purpose of
prayer, not even the only means of putting the soul in a
state of prayer, i.e., in union with God. If too much
attention is given to the meaning of the words, they can
even by an obstacle.
I am surprised this is not understood, especially when
we hear so much talk these days about a religion of the
heart, less intellectual and more spontaneous. Union with
God can be achieved as much by beautiful, heavenly
music as by the general ambience of liturgical action:
the sanctity and religious feel of the place, or its
architctural beauty, or the fervour of the Christian
community, or the dignity and devotion of the celebrant,
or symbolic decorations, or the fragrance of the incense.
Moving about is unimportant, as long as the soul is
uplifted. All you need to prove this is to go into a
Benedictine monastery which has kept the divine worship
in all its splendour.
But this does not lessen in the least the need to seek a
better understanding of the prayers and hymns as well as
a more perfect participation. But it is a mistake to try and
reach that goal purely and simply by bringing in the
vernacular and totally suppressing the universal language
of the Church, as has unfortunately happened almost
everywhere in the world. We need only look at the success
of Masses, even in the Novus Ordo rite, which have kept
the chant for the Credo, the Sanctus, or the Agnus Dei.
Latin is a universal language. In using it, the liturgy
forms us into a universal, i.e., Catholic, communion. By

contrast, localizing and individualizing the liturgy robs it
of this dimension which can make such a deep impression
on souls. To avoid making such a mistake, it should be
enough to observe the Eastern rites, in which the
liturgical action has long been couched in the vernacular.
And there an isolation can be seen - from which members
of these communities suffer. When they scatter far and
wide from their homelands, they need their own priests
for the Mass, the sacraments and ceremonies of all kinds.
They build special churches, which, in the nature of
things, separate them from the rest of the Catholic
population.
What do they gain from this? It is not entirely clear
that having their own liturgical language has made them
more fervent in practising their faith than people benefit
ting from a universal language, not understood by many,
perhaps, but easy enough to translate.
If we look outside the Church, we may ask how Islam
has succeeded in keeping its cohesiveness while spreading
over regions as different and among peoples of such
diverse races as in Turkey, North Africa, Indonesia and
black Africa. It has succeeded in imposing Arabic
everywhere as the single language of the Koran. In Africa
I saw marabouts teaching children to recite the sacred
texts by heart when they could not understand a single
word of them. Islam goes so far as to forbid the
translation of its holy book. It is fashionable these days to
admire the religion of Mohammed: thousands of French
people, it is said, are converting to it and taking up
collections in the churches to build mosques in France.
We would be well, however, simply to take note of one
example which we should remember: the sustaining
power of a single language for prayer and worship.
The fact that Latin is a dead language is in its favour:
it is the best means of protecting the expression of faith
against linguistic changes which take place naturally in
the course of time. The study of semantics has developed
rapidly in the last ten years or so: it has even been intro
duced into French language courses in the schools.
"YOU'RE A DINOSAUR!" 41
Semantics investigates changes in the meaning of words,

the gradual shift of signification in the passage of time
and often over very short periods. Let us make use of this
branch of knowledge, therefore, to understand the
danger of handing over the deposit of faith to changing
ways of speaking. Do you believe that we could have kept
intangible, eternal truths free of corruption for two
thousand years if they were expressed in languages that
are constantly evolving and which differ from one
country and even from one region to another? Living
languages change and fluctuate. If we put the liturgy into
anyone of them at any time, we will have to be
continually adapting according to semantic
requirements. So it is not surprising that there must by
endless committees set up for this, and that priests no
longer have time to say Mass.
When I went to see His Holiness Pope Paul VI at
Castelgandolfo in 1976, I said to him, "1 do not know if
you are aware, Your Holiness, that there are now
officially thirteen Eucharistic prayers in France." The
Pope raised his arms heavenward and exclaimed, "More
than that, Excellency, more than that!" This gives me the
basis for asking, Would there be so many if the liturgists
were required to compose in Latin? Besides these
formulas put into circulation - after being printed here,
there or anywhere - we would have to mention also the
canons improvised by the priest during the celebration
and everything he intoduces from the "penitential
preparation" to the "dismissal of the assem bly." Do you
think he could do this if he had to officiate in Latin?
Another external sign against which opinion has
solidified is the wearing of the cassock - not so much in
church or in visits to the Vatican as in everyday life. The
question is not of the most fundamental importance, yet
it has great symbolic value. Every time the Pope mentions
this - and Pope John Paul II has done so repeatedly
howls of protest are heard from the ranks of the clergy. In
this connection I read in a Paris newspaper this statement
from an avant-garde priest: "This is childishness ... in
France, wearing a recognizable uniform is meaningless,
because there is no need to recognize a priest on the

street. Quite the contrary: the cassock or Roman collar
creates a barrier ... the priest is a man like anyone else.
Of course he is president of the Eucharistic assembly!"
This "president of the Eucharistic assembly" is here
expressing ideas that are contrary to the Gospel and to
clearly recognized social realities. In all religions, leaders
wear distinctive signs. Anthropology, which is now all the
rage, is there to prove it. Among Muslims you see
differences in dress: collars and rings. Buddhist monks
wear saffron-coloured robes and shave their heads.
Young people associated with this religion can be seen on
the streets of Paris and other large cities, and their
appearance evokes no criticism.
The habit identifies the cleric or the religious, as a
uniform identifies a soldier or a policeman. But with a
difference: these latter, in representing the civil order,
remain citizens like other people, whereas the priest is
supposed to keep his distinctive habit in all phases of life.
In fact, the sacred mark he received at ordination means
that he is in the world but not of the world. We know this
from St. John: "You are not of the world; I chose you out
of the world" (15.19). His habit should be distinctive and
at the same time reflect the spirit of modesty, discretion
and poverty.
Secondly, the priest has the duty to bear witness to Our
Lord. "You are my witness ... Men do not put a lamp
under a bushel." Religion should not be confined to the
sacristy - as the powers in the Eastern European countries
have long since declared it should be. Christ commanded
us to spread our faith, to make it visible by a witness
which should be seen and understood by all. The witness
of the word, which is certainly more essential to the priest
than the witness of the cassock, is nevertheless greatly fac
ilitated by the unmistakable clear sign of the priesthood
implicit in the wearing of the soutane.
Separation of Church and State, which is accepted and
sometimes considered preferable, has helped the spirit of
atheism to penetrate little by little into all the realms of
activity, and we must admit that many Catholics and
YOU'RE A DINOSAUR! 43
even priests no longer have a very clear idea of the place

of the Catholic religion in civil society. Secularism is
everywhere.
The priest who lives in a society of this type gets the
ever increasing impression of being a stranger in this
society, an embarrassment, and finally a symbol of a past
age, doomed to disappear. His presence is barely
tolerated. At least that is the way he sees it. Hence his
wish to identify with the secular world, to lose himself in
the crowd. What is lacking in priests of this type is
experience of less dechristianized countries than theirs.
What is especially lacking in them is a profound sense of
their priesthood.
It is thereford difficult to make judgements on the
religious spirit of the day. It is unfair to assume that those
whom we meet in business relations or in informal
relations are not religious. The young priests who come
out of Econe and all who have not gone along with the
fad of anonymity verify this every day. Barrier? Quite the
contrary. People stop them on the street, in stations, to
talk to them, often quite simply to say what a joy it is for
them to see a priest. The great boast of the new Church is
dialogue. But how can this begin if we hide from the eyes
of our prospective dialogue partners? In communist
countries the first act of the dictators is to forbid the
cassock; this is part of a programme to stamp out religion.
And we must believe the reverse to be true too. The priest
who declares his identity by his exterior appearance is a
living sermon. The absence of recognizable priests in a
large city is a serious step backward in the preaching of
the Gospel. It is a continuation of the wicked work of the
Revolution and the Laws of Separation.
It should be added that the soutane keeps the priest out
of trouble for it imposes an attitude on him, it reminds
him at every minute of his mission on earth, it protects
him from temptations. A priest in a cassock has no ident
ity crisis. As for the faithful, they know what they are
dealing with; the cassock is a guarantee of the authent
icity of the priesthood. Catholics have told me of the
difficulty they feel in going to confession to a priest in a
business suit; it gives them the impression they are

confiding the secrets of their conscience to some sort of
nobody. Confession is a judicial act; hence the civil law
feels the need to put robes on its magistrates.
6. The New Forms of Baptism,
Marriage, Penance and Extreme
Unction
The Catholic, whether he be regularly practising or one

who goes to church for the great moments of life, finds
himself asking such basic questions as, what is baptism?
It is a new phenomenon; not so long ago anyone could
answer that, and anyway, nobody asked the question.
The first effect of baptism is the redemption from
original sin; that was known from father to son and
mother to daughter.
But now nobody any longer talks about it anywhere.
The simplified ceremony which takes place in the church
speaks of sin in a context which seems to refer to that
which the person being baptised will commit during his
or her life, and not the original fault that we are all born
with.
Baptisrn from then on simply appears as a sacrament
which unites us to God, or rather makes us members of
the community. This is the explanation of the "rite of
welcome" that is imposed in some places as an initial
step, in a first ceremony. It is not due to any private initi
ative since we discover plenty of variations upon baptism
by stages in the leaflets of the National Centre of Pastoral
Liturgy. It is also called deferred baptism. After the
welcome comes the "progression", the "seeking". The
sacrament will be administered, or not administered,
when the child is able, according to the terms used, to
choose freely, which may occur at quite an advanced age,
18 years old or more. A professor of dogmatic theology
highly esteemed in the new Church has established a
distinction between those christians whose faith and
religious culture he is confident he can verify, and the
others - more than three-quarters of the total - to whom
he attributes only a supposed faith when they request
baptism for their children. These christians "of the
popular religion" are detected during the preparatory
meetings and dissuaded from proceeding any farther

than the "ceremony of welcome". This method of going
on is "more appropriate to the cultural situation of our
civilisation. "
Recently a parish priest in the Somme department who
had to enrol two children for their first communion asked
for their baptismal certificates, which were sent to him
from the family's parish of origin. He then found that one
of the children had been baptised but not the other,
contrary to what the parent believed. This is the sort of
situation that results from these practices. What they give
is in effect only a semblance of baptism which those
present take in good faith to be the true sacrament.
That you should find this disconcerting is quite under
standable. You have also to face up to a specious
argument which appears even in parish magazines,
generally in the way of suggestions or testimonies signed
with christian names, that is to say anonymously. We
read in one of them that Alan and Evelyn state "Baptism
is not a magic rite which will efface by miracle any
original sin. We believe that salvation is total, free, and
for all: God has elected all men in his love, on any
condition, or rather without condition. For us, to be
baptised is to decide to change our life, it is a personal
commitment that no-one can take for you. It is a
conscious decision which implies preliminary instruction,
etc." What frightful errors are contained in those few
lines! They lead to the justifying of another method; the
suppression of infant baptism. It is another alignment
with the Protestants, in defiance of the teaching of the
Church right from its beginnings, as Saint Augustine
wrote at the end of the 4th century: "the custom of
baptising children is not a recent innovation but the
faithful repetition of the apostolic tradition. This custom
by itself alone and without any written document,
constitutes the certain rule of truth". The Council of
Carthage in the year 251 prescribed that baptism should
be conferred on infants "even before they are eight days
old" and the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith issued a reminder of the obligation on 21 November
THE NEW FORMS OF BAPTISM, MARRIAGE, PENANCE AND EXTREME UNCTION 47
1980, basing it upon" a norm of immemorial tradition". I

That is a thing you should know so as to be able to
insist upon a sacred right when someone attempts to
refuse your new-born children their share in the life of
grace. Parents do not wait until their child is eighteen
years old before deciding for him his diet, or to have a
necessary surgical operation. Within the supernatural
order their duty is even greater, and the faith which
presides at the sacrament when the child is not capable of
taking on for himself a personal engagement is the faith
of the Church. Just think of the fearful responsibility you
would have in depriving your child of eternal life in
Paradise. Our Lord Himself has said in a most clear
manner "Nobody, unless they be born again of water and
the Holy Spirit can enter into the Kingdom of God" .
The results of this peculiar pastoral practice were quick
to appear. In the diocese of Paris, whereas one child out
of two was baptised in 1965, only one child in four was
baptised in 1976. The clergy of one suburban parish
observed, without appearing concerned about it, that
there were 450 baptisms in 1965 and 150 in 1976. From
the whole of France the fall continues. From 1970 to 1981
the overall figure dropped from 596,673 to 530,385 whilst
the population increased by more than three millions
during the same period.
All this is the outcome of having falsified the definition
of baptism. As soon as they stopped saying that baptism
wipes out original sin, people have been asking "What is
baptism?" and straightaway after "What is the good of
baptism?" If they have not got as far as that they have at
least thought about the arguments that have been put to
them and accepted that there was no urgency, and after
all, at the age of adolescence the child could decide for
himself and join the Christian community in the same
way as joining a political party or a union.
The question is raised in the same way regarding
marriage. Marriage had always been defined by its first
aim which was procreation and its secondary aim which
I Instruction: Pastoralis actio

was married love. Now, at the Council they sought to

alter this definition and say there was no longer a primary
aim but that the two aims of which I speak were
equivalent. It was Cardinal Suenens who proposed this
change and I still remember Cardinal Brown, the Master
General of the Dominicans getting up to say "Caveatis,
caveatis, (Beware, beware!) Ifwe accept this definition we
go against all the tradition of the Church and we pervert
the meaning of marriage. We do not have the right to
modify the Church's traditional definitions. "
He quoted texts in support of his warning and there
was great agitation in the nave of St. Peter's. Cardinal
Suenens was pressed by the Holy Father to moderate the
terms he had used and even to change them. The pastoral
constitution Gaudium et Spes contains nevertheless an
ambiguous passage, wherein emphasis is laid on
procreation "without nevertheless minimizing the other
aims of marriage". The Latin verb, post habere, permits
the translation "without putting in second place the other
aims of marriage" which would mean "to place them all
on the same level". This is what is wanted nowadays; all
that is said about marriage comes back to the false idea
expressed by Cardinal Suenens, that conjugal love
which was soon termed quite simply and much more
crudeley "sexuality" - comes at the head of the purposes
of marriage. Consequently, under the heading of
sexuality everything is permitted, contraception, family
planning and finally abortion.
One bad definition, and we are plunged into total
disorder. The Church in her traditional liturgy has the
priest say "Lord, in thy goodness, assist the institutions
thou has established for the propogation of the human
race ... " She has chosen the passage from the Epistle of
St. Paul to the Ephesians which points out the duties of
the married couple, making of their joint relationship an
image of the relationship uniting Christ and His Church.
Very often the couple to be married are nowadays invited
to make up their own Mass without even having to choose
the Epistle from holy scripture, replacing it by a profane
text, and taking a reading from the Gospel that has no
connection with the sacrament to be received. The priest

in his exhortation takes good care not to mention the
demands to which they will have to submit, for fear of
giving a forbidding impression of the Church or even of
offending any divorced people present among the
congregation.
Just as for baptism, experiments have been made for
marriage by stages, or non-sacramental marriages, which
scandalise catholics. These experiments, tolerated by the
episcopate, take place following lines laid down by the
official organisations and are encouraged by diocesan
officials. A form put out by the Jean Bart Centre shows
some of the ways of going about it. Here is one: - "A
reading from the text: 'the essential is invisible to the
eyes' (Epistle of St. Peter). There is no exchange of vows
but a liturgy of the hands, symbol of labour and workers'
solidarity. Exchange of rings (without the blessing) in
silence. Reference to Robert's work: welding, soldering
(he is a plumber). The kiss. The Our Father by all the
believers in the congregation. Hail Mary. The newly-weds
lay a bouquet of flowers at the statue of Mary."
Why would Our Lord have instituted the sacraments if
they were to be replaced by this kind of ceremony devoid
of everything supernatural, excepting the two prayers at
the end? A few years ago we heard a lot about liturgy in
the department of Saone-et-Loire. To justify this "liturgy
of welcome" it was said that they wished to give young
couples the desire to come back later and get married for
good. Out of something like two hundred pseudo
marriages, two years later not a single couple had
returned to regularize their position. Even if they had,
the fact would remain that the priest of this parish had
actually recognised officially, if not actually blessed, over
a period of two years, something none other than con
cubinage. An official church survey has revealed that in
Paris 23% of the parishes had already held non
sacramental weddings for couples, one of whom if not
both were non-believers, for the purpose of gratifying the
families, or the couples themselves, often out of concern
for social conformity.
It goes without saying that a Catholic does not have the

right to attend such goings-on. As for the so-called
married couple, they can always say they have been to
church and doubtless they will end up by believing their
situation to be regular by dint of seeing their friends
follow the same path. Misguided catholics will wonder if
it is not better than nothing. Indifference takes over; they
become willing to accept any arrangement, from a simple
registry-office wedding to juvenile co-habitation (in
respect of which so many parents want to show themselves
to be "understanding") and finally through to free
unions. Total dechristianisation lies ahead; the couples
each lack the graces which come from the sacrament of
marriage in order to bring up their children, if at least
they agree to have any. The breakdowns in these
unsactified households have increased to such an extent
as to worry the Council of Economic and Social Affairs,
of which a recent report shows that even a secular society
is aware that it is heading for ruin as a result of the
instability of these families or pseudo-families.
Then there is the sacrament of extreme unction. This is
no longer the sacrament of the sick or the feeble. It has
become the sacrament of the old: some priests administer
it to persons of pensionable age who show no particular
sign of approaching death. It is no longer the sacrament
that prepares one for the last moment, which wipes out
the sins before death and disposes the soul to final union
with God. I have in front of me a notice distributed to all
the faithful in a Paris church to warn them of the date of
the next Extreme Unction: "For those who are still active,
the sacrament of the sick is celebrated in the presence of
the whole Christian community during the Eucharistic
celebration. Date: Sunday, ... at the 11 o'clock Mass".
These anointings are invalid.
The same collectivist mentality has provoked the vogue
of penitential celebrations. The sacrament of penance
can only be of an individual nature. By definition and in
conformity with its essence, it is, as I have previously
pointed out, a judicial act, a judgement. A judgement
cannot be made without having examined a cause; each
THE NEW FORMS OF BAPTISM, MARRIAGE. PENANCE AND EXTREME UNCTION 51
one's case has to be heard in order to judge it and then to

remit or to retain the sins. His Holiness John Paul II has
insisted several times on this point, notably to the French
bishops on 1 April 1982, telling them that personal
confession followed by individual absolution is "a
requirement of the dogmatic order". It is consequently
impossible to justify these ceremonies of reconciliation by
explaining that ecclesiastical discipline has become more
relaxed, that it had adapted itself to the needs of the
modern world. It is not a question of discipline. There
was formerly one exception; general absolution given in
the case of shipwreck, war, etc; an absolution whose value
is anyway debated be learned writers. It is not permissible
to make a rule out of the exception. If we consult the Acts
of the Apostolic See we find the following expressions
uttered both by Paul VI and by John Paul lIon various
occasions: "the exceptional character of collective ab
solution" , "in extraordinary situations of grave
necessity" , "quite exceptional nature", "exceptional
circumstances" ...
Celebrations of this type have, however, become
habitual though without becoming frequent in anyone
parish, due to the scarcity of faithful who are disposed to
put themselves right with God more than two or three
times a year. They no longer feel the need, as was quite
foreseeable since the idea of sin has been wiped out of
their minds. How many priests still remind people of the
need for the sacrament of penance? One member of the
faithful has told me that in going to confession in one or
another of several Paris churches where he knows he will
be able to find a "priest on duty" he often receives the
congratulations or thanks of the priest, quite surprised to
have a pentitent.
These celebrations subjected to the creativity of the
"animators" include singing, or else a record is played.
Then comes the turn of the Liturgy of the Word followed
by a litany type of prayer to which the assembly respond
"Lord have mercy upon me a sinner", or else by a sort of
general examination of conscience. The "I confess to
Almighty God" precedes the absolution given once and
52 AN OPEN LETTER TO CONFUSED CA THOLICS
for all to the whole congregation, which only leaves one

problem: would a person present who did not want
absolution receive it just the same? I see on a duplicated
sheet distributed to those taking part in these ceremonies
at Lourdes that the organiser has asked himself this
question: "If we wish to receive absolution, let us dip our
hands in the water and make the sign of the cross upon
ourselves", and at the end: "Upon those who are marked
by the sign of the cross with the water of the spring the
priest lays his hands (?). Let us unite ourselves to his
prayer and accept pardon from God."
The English Catholic paper "The Universe" a few years
ago lent its support to a movement launched by two
bishops which consisted of bringing back to the Church
those of the faithful who had long since given up the
practice of religion. The appeal made by the bishops re
sembled the public notices put out by the families of run
away adolescents. "Little X please come home. Noone
will grumble at you." It was then said to the future
prodigal sons" Your bishops invite you during this Lent to
rejoice and celebrate. The Church offers to all her
children, in the imitation of Christ, pardon for their sins,
freely and without restriction, without them meriting it
and without them requesting it. She urges them to accept
and begs them to return home. There are many who wish
to return to the Church after years of separation but are
unable to make up their minds to go to confession. At any
rate, not straightaway ... ".
They could then accept the following offer "At the
Mission Mass which will be attended by the Bishop in
your deanery (here is given the time and the date) all
those who are present are invited to accept the pardon of
all their past sins. It is not necessary for them to go to
confession at that moment. It will be sufficient for them
to repent their sins and desire to return to God, and to
confess their sins later, after having been again welcomed
into the fold. Meanwhile they have only to let Our Father
in heaven take them into his arms and embrace them
tenderly. Subject to a generous act of repentance the
bishop will grant to all those present and desiring it
pardon for their sins. They may then immediately receive

holy communion ... "
The 'Journal of the Grotto' - the bimonthly magazine
from Lourdes, reproducing this curious pastoral letter
under the heading "General Absolution: Communion
now, confession later" made the following comment:
"Our readers will be fully aware of the deeply evangelical
spirit which has inspired it, likewise the pastoral
understanding of people's actual situation" .
I do not know what results were obtained, but that is
not the issue. Can pastoral needs take precedence over
doctrine to the point of undertaking to give communion
in the body of Christ indiscriminately to the people who
are probably in many cases in a state of moral sin, after so
many years without the practice of religion? Certainly
not. How can we so lightly consider paying for the
conversion with a sacrilege, and how much chance has
this conversion of being followed by perseverence? We
can observe, in any case, that before the Council and
before this "welcoming" pastoral method there were
between fourteen and fifteen thousand conversions
annually in England. They have dropped off to about five
thousand. We recognize the tree by its fruit.
Catholics are just as confused in Great Britain as in
France. If a sinner or an apostate, following his bishop's
advice, presents himself for collective absolution and at
the holy table in these condition, does he not risk losing
his confidence in the validity of sacraments so lightly
accorded, when he has every reason to consider himself
unworthy of them? What is going to happen if later on he
neglects to "regularize" himself by going to confession?
An unsuccessful return to the house of the Father will only
make more difficult a final conversion.
That is what dogmatic laxity leads to. In the
penitential ceremonies which take place, in a less
extravagant manner, in our parishes, what certainty has
the Catholic of being truly pardoned? He is given over the
same anxieties as Protestants, to the interior torments
provoked by doubt. He has certainly gained nothing by
the change.
If it is a bad thing from the point of view of validity, it

is also bad psychologically. For instance, how absurd to
give collective absolution with the reservation that people
with grave sins have to confess them personally
immediately afterwards! People are not going to draw
attention to themselves by showing that they have grave
sins on their consciences, that is obvious! It is as though
the secret of the confessional were violated.
We should add that the faithful who communicate
after collective absolution will be longer see the need to
present themselves before the judgement of penance, and
that one can understand. The ceremonies of
reconciliation are not complementary to auricular
confession, they eliminate and supplant it. We are
proceeding towards the disappearance of the Sacrament
of Penance, established like the six others by Our Lord
Himself. No pastoral concern can justify this.
For a sacrament to be valid, the matter, the form and
the intention are all needed. The Pope himself cannot
change that. The matter is of divine institution; the Pope
cannot say "tomorrow we will use alcolhol for the baptism
of infants, or milk". Neither can he change the essential
of the form. There are essential words; for example one
cannot say "I baptize thee in the name of God" because
Christ himself has settled the form "Thou shalt baptize in
the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy
Ghost. "
The Sacrament of Confirmation has been equally
maltreated. One formula current today is "I sign thee
with the Cross, and receive the Holy Spirit". But the
minister does not then specify what is the special grace of
the sacrament by which the Holy Spirit gives Himself,
and the sacrament is invalid.
That is why I always respond to the requests of parents
who have doubts regarding the validity of the
confirmation received by their children or who fear it will
be administered invalidly, seeing what goes on around
them. The cardinals to whom I had to explain myself in
1975 reproached me on this and since then similar
reproaches are repeated through the press on all my
journeys. I explained why I carried on in this way. I meet
the wishes of the faithful who ask me for valid
confirmation, even if it is not licit, because we are in a
period when divine law, natural and supernatural, has
precedence over positive ecclesiastical law when the latter
opposes the former instead of being a channel to transmit
it. We are passing through an extraordinary crisis and
there need be no surprise if I sometimes adopt an attitude
that is out of the ordinary.
The third condition of a valid sacrament is a right
intention. The bishop or priest must have the intention of
doing what the Church wills to be done. Not even the
Pope can change that.
The priest's faith is not among the necessary elements.
A priest or bishop may no longer have the faith; another
may have it less; and another a faith that is not quite
complete. That has no direct effect on the validity of the
sacraments they administer, but may have an indirect
one. One remembers Pope Leo XIII's decision that
Anglican ordinations are invalid through a defect in the
intention. Now it was because they had lost the faith,
which is not only faith in God but in all the truths
contained in the Creed, including "I believe in one holy
catholic and apostolic church", that the Anglicans have
not been able to do what the church wills.
Are not priests who lose the faith in the same case?
There are already priests who no longer wish to confect
the sacrament of the Eucharist according to the Council
of Trent's definition. "No", they say, "The Council of
Trent was a long time ago. Since then we have had
Vatican II. Now its's trans-signification, or trans
finalisation. Transubstantiation? The Real Presence of
the Son of God under the appearances of bread and wine?
Not in these days!"
When a priest talks like this, he makes no valid consec
ration. There is no Mass or Communion. For Christians
are obliged to believe what the Council of Trent has
defined about the Eucharist until the end of time. One
can make the terms of a dogma clearer, but not change
them; that is impossible. Vatican II did not add anything
or retract anything; and it could not have done so.

Anyone who declares that he does not accept transub
stantiation is, in the terms of the Council of Trent,
anathema, that is, cut off from the Church.
This is why Catholics in this latter part of the twentieth
century have a duty to be more vigilant than their fathers
were. They must not let just any idea be imposed upon
them, in the name of the new theology or the new
religion: for what this new religion wants is not what the
Church wills.
7. The New Priests
To the man in the street, even the most indifferent to

religious questions, it is obvious that there are fewer and
fewer priests, and the newspapers regularly remind him
of the fact. It is over fifteen years ago since the book
appeared with the title "Tomorrow a Church without
Priests?" .
Yet the situation is even more serious than it appears.
The question has also to be asked, how many priests still
have the faith? And even a further question, regarding
some of the priests ordained in recent years: are they true
priests at all? Put it another way, are their ordinations
valid? The same doubt overhangs other sacraments. It
applies to certain ordinations of bishops such as that
which took place in Brussels in the summer of 1982 when
the consecrating bishop said to the ordinand "Be an
apostle like Gandhi, Helder Camara, and Mahomet!"
Can we reconile these references, at least as regards
Gandhi and Mahomet, with the evident intention of
doing what the Church intends?
Here is the order of service for a priestly ordination
which took place at Toulouse a few years ago. A
commentator starts off, introducing the ordinand by his
christian-name C., with the words "He has decided to live
more thoroughly his self-dedication to God and to man
by consecrating himself entirely to the service of the
Church in the working-class". C. has worked out his
"pathway", that is to say, his seminary training, in a
team. It is this team who present him to the bishop: "We
request you to recognize and authenticate his application
and ordain him priest." The bishop then asks him several
questions purporting to be a definition of the priesthood:
Do you wish to be ordained a priest "to be, with the
believers, a Sign and a Witness of what Mankind is seek
ing, in its striving for Justice, for Brotherhood and for
Peace", "to serve the people of God", "to recognize, in
men's lives, the action of God in the ways they take, in
their cultural patterns, in the choices open to them", "to
celebrate the action of Christ and perform this service":

do you wish "to share with me and with the body of
bishops the responsibility that has been entrusted to us for
the service of the Gospel?"
The "matter" of the sacrament has been preserved in
the laying on of hands which takes place next, and
likewise the "form", namely the words of ordination. But
we are obliged to point out that the intention is far from
clear. Has the priest been ordained for the exclusive
service of one social class and, first and foremost, to
establish justice, fellowship and peace at a level which
appears to be limited to the natural order only? The
eucharistic celebration which follows, "the first mass" in
effect, of the new priest was, in fact, on these lines. The
offertory has been specially composed for the
circumstances. "We welcome you, Lord, by receiving on
your behalf this bread and wine which you offfer us; we
wish to show by this all our work and our efforts to build a
more just and more humane world, all that we are trying
to bring about so that better living conditions may follow
... ". The prayer over the offerings is even more dubious.
"Look, Lord we offer you this bread and this wine, that
they may become for us one of the ways in which you are
present". No! People who celebrate in this manner do not
believe in the Real Presence!
One thing is certain; the first victim of this scandalous
ordination is the young man who had just pledged him
self for ever without exactly knowing to what, or thinking
that he knows. How can he not fail, sooner or later, to ask
himself certain questions? Because the ideal that has been
proposed to him cannot satisfy him for long; the
ambiguity of his mission will become evident. It is what is
called" the priest's identity crisis". The priest is essentially
a man of faith. If he no longer knows what he is, he loses
faith in himself, and in his priesthood.
The definition of the priesthood given by Saint Paul
and by the Council of Trent has been radically altered.
The priest is no longer one who goes up to the altar and
offers up to God a sacrifice of praise, for the remission of
sins. The relative order of purposes has been inverted.
THE NEW PRIESTS 59
The priesthood has a first aim, which is to offer the

sacrifice; that of evangelisation is secondary.
The case of C., which is far from being unique, as we
know of many examples, shows to what extent evangelis
ation has taken precedence over the sacrifice and the
sacraments. It has become an end in itself. This grave
error has had serious consequences.
Evangelisation, deprived of its aim, loses direction and
seeks purposes that are pleasing to the world, such as a
false "social justice" and a false "liberty". These acquire
new names: development, progress, building up the
world, improving living-conditions, pacifism ... Here is
the sort of language which has led to all the revolutions.
The sacrifice of the altar being no longer the first
purpose of the priesthood, it is the whole of the sacra
ments which are at stake and for which the "person
responsible for the parish sector" and his "team" will call
upon the laity, who are themselves overburdened with
trades-union or political tasks, often more political than
trades-union. In fact, the priests who engage in social
struggles choose almost exclusively the most politicised
organisations. Within these they fight against political,
ecclesiastical, family and social structures. Nothing can
remain. Communism has found no agents more effective
that these priests.
I was explaining one day to a Cardinal what I was
doing in my seminaries, with their spirituality directed
above all to the deepening of the theology of the Sacrifice
of the Mass and towards liturgical prayer. He said to me,
"But Monsignor, that is exactly the opposite of what our
young priests now want. We now define the priest only in
terms of evangelisation. " I replied, "What
evangelisation? If it does not have a fundamental and
essential relationship with the Holy Sacrifice, how do you
understand it? A political evangelisation, or social, or
humanitarian? "
If he no longer announces Jesus Christ, the apostle
becomes a militant and marxist trades-unionist. That is
very natural. We quite understand it. He needs a new
mystique and he finds it this way; but loses that of the
altar. We must not be surprised that, completely

bewildered, he gets married and abandons the
priesthood. In France, in 1970,285 ordinations; in 1980,
Ill. And how many of them have returned or will return
to civil life? Even the startling figures we have quoted do
not correspond to the actual decline in numbers of the
clergy. What is offered to young men and what it is said
they "now desire" evidently does not satisfy their
aspira tions.
The proof is easy to demonstrate. There are no more
vocations because they no longer know what is the
Sacrifice of the Mass. In consequence, one can no longer
define what the priest is. On the other hand, where the
Sacrifice is known and respected as the Church has always
taught, vocations are plentiful.
I have witnessed this in my own seminaries. All we do is
to affirm the everlasting truths. Vocations have come to
us of their own accord, without publicising. The only
advertising has been done by the modernists. I have
ordained 187 priests in thirteen years. Since 1983 the
regular numbers are from 35 to 40 ordinations per year.
The young men who apply to enter Econe, Ridgefield
(USA), Zaitkofen (West Germany), Francisco Alvarez
(Argentina) and Alaban (Italy) are drawn by the Sacrifice
of the Mass.
What an extraordinary grace for a young man to go up
to the altar as the minister of Our Lord, to be another
Christ! Nothing is finer or greater here on earth. It is
worth the cost of leaving one's family, of giving up having
a family, or renouncing the world and accepting poverty.
But if there is no longer that attraction, then I say
frankly, it is not worthwhile, and that is why the semin
aries are empty.
Let them continue on the lines adopted by the Church
for the last 20 years, and to the question "Will there still
be priests in the year 2000?" The answer must be, No.
But if there is a return to the true notions of the faith,
there will be vocations, both for seminaries and for the
religious orders.
For what is it that makes the greatness and the beauty
THE NEW PRIESTS 61
of a priest or a nun? It is the offering up of oneself as a

victim at the altar with Our Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise
the religious life is meaningless. The young men are just
as generous in our times as they were in former times.
They long to make an offering of themselves. It is our
times that are defective.
Everything is bound up together. By attacking the base
of the building it is destroyed entirely. No more Mass, no
more priests. The ritual, before it was altered, had the
bishop say "Receive the power to offer to God the Holy
Sacrifice and to celebrate Holy Mass both for the living
and for the dead, in the name of the Lord." He had
previously blessed the hands of the ordinand by
pronouncing these words "So that all that they bless may
be blessed and all that they consecrate may be
consecrated and sanctified." The power conferred is
expressed without ambiguity: "That for the salvation of
The people and by their holy blessing, they may effect the
Transubstantiation of the bread and the wine into the
Body and Blood of thy Divine Son. "
Nowadays the bishop says, "Receive the offering of the
holy people to present it to God." He makes the new
priest an intermediary rather than the holder of the min
isterial priesthood and the offerer of a sacrifice. The
conception is wholly different. The priest has always been
considered in Holy Church as someone having a
character conferred by the Sacrament of Order. Yet
we have seen a bishop, not "suspended", write, "The
priest is not somebody who does things that the ordinary
faithful don't do; he is not 'another Christ', any more
than any other baptised person. " This bishop was merely
drawing the conculusions from the teaching that has
prevailed since the Council and the liturgy.
A confusion has been made with regard to the relation
of the priesthood of the faithful and that of priests. Now,
as the cardinals said who were appointed to make their
observations on the infamous Dutch catechism, "the
greatness of the ministerial priesthood (that of priests) in
its participation in the priesthood of Christ, differs from
the common priesthood of the faithful in a manner that is
not only of degree but also of essence." To maintain the

contrary, on this point alone, is to align oneself with
protestantism.
The unchanging doctrine of the Church is that the
priest is invested with a sacred and indelible character.
"Tu es sacerdos in aeternum". Whatever he may do,
before the angels, before God, in all eternity, he will
remain a priest. Even if he throws away his cassock, wears
a red pullover or any other colour or commits the most
awful crimes, it will not alter things. The Sacrament of
Orders has made a change in his nature.
We are far from the priest "chosen by the assembly to
fulfil a function in the Church" and still more so from the
priest for a limited period, suggested by some, at the end
of which the official for worship - for I can think of no
other term to describe him - would take his place again
amongst the faithful.
This desacralised view of the priestly ministry leads
quite naturally to querying priestly celibacy. There are
noisy pressure groups calling for its abolition in spite of
the repeated warnings of the Roman magisterium. We
have seen in Holland, seminarists go on strike against
ordinations to obtain 'guarantees' in this matter. I shall
not quote the names of those bishops who have got up to
urge the Holy See to reconsider the subject.
The subject would not even arise if the clergy had kept
the right understanding of the Mass and of the
priesthood. For the true reason appears of itself when we
fully understand these two realities. It is the same reason
for which Our Blessed Lady remained a virgin; having
borne Our Lord within her womb it was perfectly right
and fitting that she should remain so. Likewise, the priest
by the words he pronounces at the Consecration, brings
God down upon earth. He has such a closeness with God,
a spiritual being, spirit above all, that it is right, just and
eminently fitting that he also should be a virgin and
remain celibate.
But, some object, there are married priests in the East.
However, let us not deceive ourselves: it is only a
toleration. The eastern bishops may not marry, not those
THE NEW PRIESTS 63
holding important positions. This clergy respects priestly

celibacy, which forms part of the most ancient Tradition
of the Church and which the apostles had observed from
the moment of Pentecost. Those who like Saint Peter
were already married continued to live with their wives,
but "knew" them no longer.
It is noticeable that the priests who succumb to the
mirage of a so-called social or political mission almost
automatically get married. The two things go together.
People would have us believe that the present times
justify all sorts of licence, that it is impossible under
present day conditions to live a chaste life, that the vows
of virginity for religious people are an anachronism. The
experience of the last twenty years shows that the attacks
made on the priesthood under the pretext of adapting it
to the present time are fatal to it. Yet a "Church without
priests" is not to be envisaged because the Church is
essentially sacerdotal.
In these sad times they want free-love for the laity and
marriage for the clergy. If you perceive in this apparent
illogicality an implacable logic having as its objective the
ruin of Christian society, you are seeing things as they are
and your assessment is correct.
8. The New Catechisms.
Among Catholics, I have often heard, and continue to

hear the remark, "They want to impose a new religion on
us". Is this an exaggeration? The modernists, who have
infiltrated themselves everywhere in the Church and lead
the dance, sought at first to reassure us: "Oh no, you have
got that impression because old obsolete ways have been
changed, for compelling reasons: we cannot pray now
exactly as people used to pray, we have had to sweep away
the dust, adopt a language that can be understood by our
contemporaries, and open ourselves up to our separated
brethren ... But nothing is changed, of course."
Then they began to take fewer precauthions, and the
bolder ones among them began to make admissions, in
little groups of like-minded people and even publicity.
One Father Cardonnel went round preaching a new
Christianity in which "that precious transcendance that
makes God into a Universal Monarch" would be
challenged. He openly adopted Leisy's modernism: "If
you were born into a Christian family, the catechisms you
learnt are mere skeletons of the faith". And, "Our
Christianity would seem to be neo-Capitalist at best".
And Cardinal Suenens, after reconstructing the Church
to his own liking, called for" an opening up to the widest
theological pluralism" and for the setting up of a
hierarchy of truths, with some that must be strongly
believed, others that must be believed a little, and others
of no importance.
In 1973, on the premises of the Archbishop's house at
Paris, Fr. Bernard Feillet gave a course of lectures of a
thoroughly official kind, under the banner of "Adult
Christian Formation". In it he repeatedly affirmed,
"Christ did not conquer death. He was put to death by
death. On the level of life, Christ was conquered, and we
shall all be conquered. the fact is that faith is not justified
by anything; it must be a cry of protest against this
universe which ends, as we said just now, in the
perception of absurdity, in the consciousness of
THE NEW CATECHISMS 65
damnation, and in the reality of nothingness. "
I could quote an impressive number of cases of this
kind, which caused various degrees of scandal and were
repudiated more or less - some of them not at all. But it
passed over the heads of the Catholic people as a whole. If
they learnt of these things in the newspapers they thought
of them as abuses that were exceptional and did not
affect their own faith. But they began to be worried when
they found in their children's hands catechisms which no
longer set out Catholic doctrine as it had been taught
from time immemorial.
All the new Catechisms that draw their inspiration to a
greater or less degree from the Dutch Catechism
published in 1966 were so spurious that the Pope
appointed a commission of cardinals to examine it. They
met in April 1967 at Gazzada in Lombardy. Now this
commission raised ten points regarding which it advised
the Holy See to demand modifications. It was a way of
saying, in conformity with the post-conciliar style, that on
these points there was disagreement with the teaching of
the Church. A few years earlier they would have been
forthfightly condemned and the Dutch Catechism put on
the Index. The errors or omissions concerned did, in fact,
touch upon essentials of the faith.
What do we find in it? The Dutch Catechism ignores
the angels, and does not treat human souls as being
directly created by God. It insinuates that original sin was
not transmitted by our first parents to all their
descendants but is contracted by men through their living
in the human community, where evil reigns, as though it
were a sort of epidemic. There is no affirmation of the
virginity of Mary. Nor does it say that Our Lord died for
our sins, being sent for this purpose by His Father, and
that this was the price by which divine Grace was restored
to us. Consequently, the Mass is presented not as a
sacrifice but as a banquet. Neither the Real Presence or
the reality of Transubstantiation are clearly affirmed.
The Church's infallibility and the fact that she is the
possessor of the truth have vanished from this teaching,
likewise the possibility for the human intellect to "declare
66 AN OPEN LETfER TO CONFUSED CATHOLICS
and attain to revealed mysteries": thereby one arrives at

agnosticism and relativism. The ministerial priesthood is
minimised. The office of the bishops is considered as a
mandate entrusted to them by the "people of God", and
their teaching authority is seen as a sanctioning of the
belief held by the community of the faithful. And the
Pope no longer has his full, supreme and universal
authority.
Neither is the Holy Trinity, the mystery of the three
divine Persons, presented in a satisfactory manner. The
commission also criticised the explanation given of the
efficacity of the sacraments, of the definition of a
miracle, and of the fate of the souls of the just after
death. It found a great deal of vagueness in the exposition
of the laws of morality, and the "solutions to cases of
conscience" put a low price on the indissolubility of
marrIage.
Even if all the rest of the book is "good and praise
worthy" - which is not surprising, since modernists, as St
Pius X firmly pointed out, have always mixed truth and
falsehood together - nevertheless, we have seen enough to
be able to describe it as a perverse production partic
ularly dangerous to faith. Yet without waiting for the
commission's report, on the contrary going full tilt ahead,
the promoters of the operation had the book published in
several languages. And the text has never since been
altered. Sometimes the commission's statement is
annexed to the list of contents, sometimes not. I shall
refer later on to the problem of obedience. Who is being
disobedient in this affair? And who denounces this
"catechism" ?
The Dutch set the pace. We have quickly caught them
up. I shall not relate the history of the French catechism,
but will pause to consider its latest manifestation, the
"Catholic collection of key documents of the faith"
entitled Pierres Vivantes (Living Stones), and the
accompanying flood of "catechetical studies". These
works ought, out of respect for the word "catechesis"
used in all of them, to proceed on a question-and-answer
method. However, they have abandoned this form, which
allowed the content of the faith to be studied systemat

ically, and they hardly ever give answers. Pierres Vivantes
avoids affirming anything, except new and unusual
propositions that have nothing to do with Tradition.
When dogmas are mentioned, they are spoken of as the
particular beliefs of a section of mankind which this book
calls "the Christians", putting them on a level with the
Jews, the Protestants, the Buddhists, and even the
agnostics and atheists. In several courses the catechists
are invited to ask the child to choose a religion, no matter
which. It will also be for his good to listen to unbelievers,
who have much to teach him. What matters is to "belong
to the team", to help one another as class-mates and to
prepare for the social struggles of tomorrow in which one
will have to take part, even alongside communists, as is
seen in the edifying story of Madeleine Delbrel. Her story
is sketched in Pierres Vivantes and told at length in other
courses. Another "saint" put forward as an example to
children is Martin Luther King, while Marx and
Proudhon are vaunted as "great defenders of the working
class" who "appear to come from outside the Church".
The Church, you see, would have liked to have taken up
this fight, but did not know how to set about it. She con
tented herself with "denouncing injustice". This is what
children are being taught.
But still more serious is the discredit that is being cast
upon the Scriptures, the work of the Holy Spirit. Whereas
one would have expected to see the selection of Biblical
texts begin with the creation of the world and of man,
Pierres Vivantes begins with the book of Exodus, under
the title of "God creates His people". Catholics must
surely be not only confused but disconcerted and dis
gusted by such a misuse of words.
We have to arrive at the First Book of Samuel before
returning to Genesis to learn that God did not create the
world. I am not inventing anything here, either. We
read: "The author of the story of creation, like many
people, is wondering how the world began. Believers have
given thought to it. One of them wrote a poem ... " Then,
at the court of Solomon, other wise men reflected on the
problem of evil. To explain it they wrote a "picture

story", and we have the temptation by the serpent and
the fall of Adam and Eve. But not the chastisement. The
story is cut at that point. God does not punish, just as the
Church no longer condemns, except those who stay
faithful to Tradition. Original sin (printed between
quotation marks) is "an illness from birth", "an infirmity
going back to the origins of humanity", something very
vague and inexplicable.
Of course, the whole of religion crumbles. If we can no
longer give an explanation of the problem of evil, there is
no further point in preaching, saying Mass or hearing
confessions. Who will listen to us?
The New Testament opens with Pentecost. The
emphasis is laid on that first community uttering its cry of
faith. Next, these Christians "remember", and the story
of Our Lord emerges little by little from the clouds of
their memory, beginning with the end: the Last Supper,
or Calvary. Then comes the public life, and finally the
infancy under the ambiguous heading "The first disciples
tell the story of Jesus' childhood".
On such foundations these courses have no difficulty in
giving the impression that the Gospel accounts of the
infancy of Christ are pious legends of the sort that ancient
peoples were accustomed to invent when they recorded
the lives of their great men. Pierres Viuantes also gives a
late dating of the Gospels which diminishes their
credibility and tendentiously portrays the Apostles and
their successors as preaching, celebrating the Mysteries
and teaching before "presenting their own reading of the
life of Jesus on the basis of their experience". The facts
are turned upside down: the Apostles' personal exper
ience becomes the origin of revelation, instead of the
revelation shaping their thought and their lives.
When it comes to the "four last things", Pierres
Viuantes is confusing and disquieting. What is the soul?
Reply: "We need breath is we are to run ... when some
one dies, we say' he has breathed his last' . The breath is
the life, the intimate life of a person. We also say, 'the
soul' ." In another chapter the soul is likened to the
heart, the heart which beats, and loves. The heart is also
the seat of the conscience. What can we make of this?
And death: what is that? The authors come to no
conclusion. "For some, death is the final ceasing of life.
Others think we can live after death, but do not know for
sure. Finally there are others who have a firm assurance
about this: Christians are among them." It is up to the
child to choose: death is a matter of opinion. But is not
the one who is being taught the Catechism a Christian? In
that case, why speak to him of Christians in the third
person instead of stating firmly, "We Christians know
that eternal life exists and that the soul does not die"?
Paradise also is a subject treated equivocally:
"Christians sometimes speak of Paradise to describe the
perfect joy of being with God for ever after death; it is
Heaven, the Kingdom of God, Eternal Life, the Reign of
Peace". This is a very hypothetical explanation. It would
seem that one is dealing with a figure of speech, a
reassuring metaphor used by Christians. But Our Lord
has promised us Heaven, if we keep his commandments;
and the Church has always defined that as "a place of
perfect happiness where the angels and the elect see God
and possess Him for ever." This catechesis shows a
definite going-back on what the catechisms used to
affirm. The only result will be a lack of confidence in the
truths taught and in a spiritual disarmament: what is the
good of resisting our instincts and following the narrow
way if we are not very sure of what awaits a Christian
after death?
A Catholic does not go to the priests or his bishop
asking for suggestions to enable him to form his own idea
about God, or the world, or the last things. He asks them
what he must believe and what he must do. If they reply
with a whole range of propositions and patterns for
living, then it only remains for him to make up his own
personal religion: he becomes a protestant. This
catechesis is turning children into little protestants.
The keynote of the reform is the drive against certain
ties. Catholics who have them are branded as misers
guarding their treasures, as greedy egotists who should be
ashamed of themselves. The important thing is to be

open to contrary opinions, to admit diversity, to respect
the ideas of freemasons, marxists, muslims, even
animists. The mark of a holy life is to join in dialogue
with error.
Thenceforth everything is permitted. I have already
spoken of the consequences of the new definition of
marriage. These are not the remote consequences which
would follow if Christians took this definition litteraly: on
the contrary, they have not been slow to appear, as we
can judge by the moral permissiveness which is becoming
daily more widespread. But what is still more shocking is
that the catechesis is aiding this process. Let us take an
example from some "catechetical material" as they call
it, published with the episcopal imprimatur about 1972
at Lyons, and intended for teachers. The title? "Behold
the Man". In the section dealing with morals we read:
"Jesus did not intend to leave to posterity a moral system,
either political, sexual, or what you will. His only per
manent insistance is love between one another ... Beyond
that, you are free; it is for you to choose what in every
instance is the best way to express this love which you bear
to your fellow-men. "
The section on "purity" draws consequences from this
general principle. After explaining, at the expense of the
book of Genesis, that clothing only appeared later "as a
sign of social rank or dignity" and to serve "a purpose of
dissimulation", purity is defined as follows. "To be pure
is to be in order, to be faithful to nature ... To be pure
means being in harmony, at peace with men and with the
earth; it means being in accord with the great forces of
nature without either resistance or violence." Next we
find a question and an answer: "Is a purity of this sort
compatible with the purity of Christians? - Not only is it
compatible, it is necessary to a truly human and Christian
purity. Jesus Christ neither denied or rejected any of the
discoveries and acquisitions that are the fruit of the long
searching of the peoples. Quite the contrary; He came to
give them an extraordinary extension: 'I came not to
destroy but to fulfil' . "
In support of their claims the authors give the example
of Mary Magdalen; "In that gathering it is she who is
pure, because she has loved much, loved deeply." This is
their manner of falsifying the Gospel: of Mary Magdalen
they retain only the sin, the dissolute life. The pardon
that Our Lord granted her is presented as an approval of
her past, and no notice is taken of the exhortation "Go,
and sin no more", nor of the firm resolution that led the
former sinner to Calvary, faithful to her Master for the
rest of her days. This revolting book knows no limits:
"Can one have relations with a girl", the authors ask,
"even if one knows that it is for pleasure or to see what a
woman is like?" And they reply "To put the problem of
the laws of purity in this way is unworthy of a true man, a
loving man, a Christian... Would not that mean
imposing a strait-jacket, an intolerable yoke? When
Christ came precisely to free us from the heavy burdens of
laws: 'My yoke is easy and My burden light' ." You see
how the holiest words are interpreted so as to pervert
souls! From Saint Augustine they have remembered only
one sentence, "Love, and do as you will"!
I have been sent some contemptible books published in
Canada. They speak only of sex and always in capital
letters: "sexuality lived in faith", "sexual promotion",
etc. This pictures are absolutely disgusting. It seems that
they wish at all costs to give children a desire for and an
obsession with sex; to make them think it is the only thing
in life. Many Christian parents have protested, but
nothing has been done about it, for a good reason: on the
back page we read that these catechisms have been
approved by the Catechetical Commission. The per
mission to print has been given by the President of the
Episcopal Commission for Religious Teaching of Quebec!
Another catechism approved by the Canadian
episcopate calls upon children to break with everything
parents, tradition, and society - so as to re-discover their
personality that all these ties have smothered, and free
themselves from the complexes that come from society or
from the family. Always looking for justification in the
Gospel, those who give this sort of advice claim that
Christ made similar breaks and thereby revealed Himself

to be the Son of God. So it is His wish that we should do
likewise.
How can one accept an idea so contrary to the Catholic
religion on the pretext that it is covered by episcopal
authority? Instead of talking about breaks we need to
cherish the bonds that make up our life. What is the love
of God if not a link with God and obedience to Him and
His commandments? And the bond with our parents, our
love for them, is a bond for life, not of death. But they
are now presented to children a something constraining
and repressing which diminishes their personality, and
from which they must free themselves!
No, there can be no question of your allowing your
children to be corrupted in this manner. I say frankly,
you cannot send them to these catechism classes that
make them lose their faith.
9. The New Theology
The ravages caused by the new catechism are already

visible in the generation which has been exposed to it. As
required by the Sacred Congregation for Seminaries and
Universities since 1970, I had included in the plan of
studies for my seminaries one year's spirituality at the
beginning of the course. Spirituality includes the study of
asceticism, mysticism, training in meditation and prayer,
deepening the notions of virtue, supernatural grace, the
presence of the Holy Ghost. Very soon we had to think
again. We realised that these young men, who had come
with a strong desire to become true priests, and having an
interior life deeper than many of their contemporaries,
and accustomed to prayer, were lacking and fundamen
tal ideas of our Faith. They had never learned them.
During the year of spirituality, we had to teach them the
catechism!
I have many times told the story of the birth of Econe.
In this house situated in the Valais in Switzerland,
between Sion and Martigny, it was originally intended
that the future priests would complete only their first year
(of spirituality). Then they would follow the university
course at Fribourg. A complete seminary (at Ec6ne) took
shape as soon as it did because the University at Fribourg
could not provide a truly Catholic education. The
Church has always considered the university chairs of
theology, canon law, liturgy and Church law as organs of
her magisterium or at least of her preaching. Now it is
quite certain that at present in all, or nearly all of the
Catholic universities, the orthodox Catholic faith is no
longer being taught. I have not found one doing so,
either in free Europe, or in the United States, or in South
America. There are always some professors who, under
the pretext of theological research, express opinions
which are contradictory to our faith, and not only on
points of secondary importance.
I have already spoken of the Dean of the Faculty of
Theology at Strasbourg, for whom the presence of Our
Lord in the Mass can be compared to that of Wagner at

the Bayreuth Festival. It is no longer a question of the
Novus Ordo for him. The world is evolving so rapidly that
these things are quickly left behind. He considers that we
must foresee a Eucharist which will emerge from the
group itself. What does he mean by this? He is not sure
himself. But in his book "Contemporary Thought and
Expression of Eucharistic Faith" he prophesies that
members of that group gathered together will create the
feeling of communion in Christ who will be present
amongst them, but above all under the species of bread
and wine. He scoffs at calling the Eucharist "an effic
acious sign" (a definition common to all the sacraments).
"That is ridiculous," he says; "we can no longer say that
sort of thing; in our day it no longer makes sense. "
The young students who hear these things from their
professors and moreover from the dean of the faculty,
and young seminarists who attend the classes, are little by
little infected with the error. They receive a training
which is no longer Catholic. It is the same for those who
not long ago heard a Dominican professor at Fribourg
assuring them that premarital relations are both normal
and desirable.
My own seminarists knew another Dominican who
taught them to compose new versions of the Canon of the
Mass. "It isn't difficult; here are a few principles you can
easily use when you are priests." We could go on with
examples like this. Smulders, at the Theological Faculty
in Arnsterdam, suspects that St. Paul and St. John
invented the concept of Jesus as Son of God, and thus he
rejects the dogma of the Incarnation. Schillebeeckx, at
the University of Nimjaegen, comes out with the most
outrageous ideas; he has invented "trans-signification,"
subjecting the dogma (of transubstantiation) to the
conditions of each period of history; and he assigns a
social and temporal definition to the doctrine of
salvation. Kung, at Tiibingen, before he was forbidden to
teach in a chair of Catholic theology, questioned the
mystery of the Blessed Trinity, of the Virgin Mary, and
the sacraments, and described Jesus as a public story
THE NEW THEOLOGY 75
teller lacking" all theological training". Snackenburg, at
the University of Wurzburg, accuses St. Matthew of
having forged the confession, "Thou art the Christ" in
order to authenticate the primacy of Peter. Rahner, who
died recently, minimised Tradition in his lectures at the
University of Munich, virtually denying the Incarnation
by always speaking of Our Lord as a man "naturally
conceived", denying original sin and the Immaculate
Conception and recommending theological plurality.
All these people are praised to the skies by the leading
spokesmen of neo-modernism. They have the support of
the press, in such a way that their theories assume
importance in the eyes of the public and their names are
known to all. They thus appear to represent the entirety
of theology and gain support for the idea that the Church
has changed. They have been able to continue their
subversive teaching for many years, interrupted some
times by mild sanctions. The popes issue regular
reminders of the limits of the theologian's competence.
Pope John Paul II said quite recently, "It is not possible
to turn away and detach oneself from those fundamental
reference points, the defined dogmas, without losing
one's Catholic identity". Schillebeckx, Kung and Pohier
have been reprimanded but have not suffered sanctions,
the last-named for a book in which he denies the bodily
resurrection of Christ. And who would have imagined
that at the Roman Universities, including the Gregorian,
under the pretext of theological research the most in
credible theories are allowed, regarding the relationship
of Church and State, divorce, and other fundamental
questions?
There is no doubt that abolishing the Holy Office,
which had always been seen by the Church as the tribunal
of the Faith, has favoured these abuses. Until then
anyone - layman, priest or a fortiori - a bishop - could
submit to the Holy Office any text, any article and ask
whether the Church thought the writing was in
conformity or not with the Catholic doctrine. A month or
six weeks later, the Holy Office would reply: "This is
correct, this is false, that must be made clear; one part is
true and one part false ... "

Every document was thus examined and judged def
initively. Does it shock you to learn that the writings of
another person could be submitted to a tribunal? But
what happens in civil society? Is there not a Constitut
ional Counsel to decide what is and what is not in
conformity with the Constitution? Are there not tribunals
to deal with cases affecting private individuals and
groups? We can even ask a judge to intervene in cases of
public morality, against an offensive poster or against a
magazine sold openly, if the cover constitutes an outrage
against good morals, although the limits of what is
permitted have widened considerably in recent times in
many countries.
But in the Church, a tribunal was no longer
acceptable; we could no longer judge or condemn. The
modernists, like the Protestants, have singled out from
the gospels their favourite phrase "Thou shalt not judge".
But they ignore the fact that immediately after, Our
Lord said: "Beware of false prophets ... by their fruits
you shall know them". A Catholic must not make ill
considered judgements on the faults and personal actions
of his brethren, but Christ has commanded him to
preserve his faith, and how can he do this without casting
a critical eye upon what he is given to read or to hear?
Any dubious opinion could be submitted to the
magisterium; that was the purpose of the Holy Office.
But since the reform, the Holy Office has defined itself as
"the Office for Theological Research". A considerable
difference.
I remember asking Cardinal Browne, former Superior
General of the Dominicans, who had long been at the
Holy Office, "Your Eminence, do you have the
impression that this is a radical change, or merely super
ficial and outward?" "Oh, no," he replied, "the change is
fundamental" .
This is why we must not be surprised if little or nothing
is now condemned, if the Tribunal for the Faith of the
Church no longer fulfils its duty toward theologians and
all those who write on religious topics. It follows from this
THE NEW THEOLOGY 77
that errors are everywhere. They spread from the
university chairs to the catechisms and to the remotest
parish presbyteries. The poison of heresy ends by
contaminating the whole Church. The ecclesiastical
magisterium is in a very serious crisis.
The most absurd reasoning is used to support the
activity of these soi disant theologians. We have seen a
certain Father Duquoc, professor at Lyons, travelling all
over France giving lectures on the advisibility of
conferring temporary priesthood on certain of the
faithful, including women. A good number of the
faithful have protested here and there, and one bishop in
the South of France has taken a firm stand against this
controversial preacher. This happens occasionally. But at
Laval the scandalised laity received this reply from their
bishop: "It isour absolute duty in this case to preserve
freedom of speech within the Church". This is
astonishing. Where did he get this idea of freedom of
speech? It is completely alien to the law of the Church;
yet he considers the defence of it to be a bishop's absolute
duty! It amounts to a complete inversion of episcopal
responsibility, which should consist of defending the
Faith and preserving the people entrusted to him from
heresy.
It is necessary to cite examples from the public sphere.
I would ask the reader to believe that I am not writing
this book to criticise personalities. That, too, was always
the attitude of the Holy Office. It did not examine
persons, but only writings. A theologian might complain
that they had condemned one of this books without giving
him a hearing. But precisely - the Holy Office
condemned particular writings and not authors. It would
say, "This book contains statements which are at variance
with the traditional doctrine of the Church". Just that!
Why go back to the person who had written them? His
intentions and his culpability are the concern of another
tribunal, that of penance.
10. Ecumenism
In this confusion of ideas (in which some Catholics now
seem to be quite at ease), there is a tendency especially
dangerous to the Faith, the more so because it
masquerades as charity. The word which appeared in
1927 during a congress held at Lausanne, Switzerland,
would have put Catholics on their guard if they had con
sul ted their dictionaries. "Ecumenism: a movement
toward reunion of all Christian churches in a single
church." Now it is clear that we cannot combine
contradictory principles. We cannot unite truth and
error so as to form one thing, except by adopting the
error and rejecting all or part of the truth. Ecumenism is
self condemnatory.
The expression has become so fashionable since the last
Council that it has slipped into everyday speech. We
speak of university ecumenism, of exploratory ecumenism
and whatever else, to express a taste or a preference for
diversity and eclecticism.
In religious language ecumenism has recently been
extended to non-Christian religions and translated
straightway into action. A newspaper in western France
gives us a perfect example of the way this evolutionary
process works. In a small parish near Cherbourg, the
Catholic population showed concern for the welfare of
the Muslim workers who had arrived to work on a
building site. For this charitable action they can only be
praised. In the next stage, however, the Muslims asked
for a place to celebrate the fast of Ramadan, and the
Christians offered them the basement of their church.
Then a Koranic school opened. After a couple of years
the Christians invited the Muslims to celebrate Christmas
with them" around a common prayer made up of extracts
from the Koran and verses from the Gospels". Misplaced
charity had led these Christians to come to terms with
error.
In Lille the Dominicans have offered the Muslims a
chapel to be turned into a mosque. In Versailles
ECUMENISM 79
collections have been taken up in the churches for the

"purchase of a place of worship for the Muslims". Two
other chapels have been handed over, at Roubaix and at
Marseilles, together with a church at Argenteuil.
Catholics have become the apostles of the worst enemy of
the Church of Christ - which is what Islam is - and are
offering their money to Mohamed. It appears that there
are more than four hundred mosques in France, and in
many cases Catholics have given the money for their con
struction.
Nowadays all religions have the Freedom of the City
within the Church. A French cardinal celebrated Mass in
the presence of some Tibetan monks, dressed in their
ceremonial robes and seated in the front row, bowing
before them while a commentator announced: "The
bonzes share with us in the Eucharistic celebration". In a
church at Rennes, worship of Buddha was celebrated. In
Italy twenty monks were solemnly initiated into Zen by a
Buddhist.
I could cite endless examples of such syncretism going
on around us. We see associations developing,
movements being born which always seem to find an ecc
lesiastic as leader who wants to join in the quest to "blend
all spiritualities in love". Or astounding projects like the
transformation of Notre Dame de la Garde (at Marseilles)
into a place of monotheistic worship for Christians,
Muslims and Jews, a project which fortunately was
stopped by some groups of lay people.
Ecumenism in the strict sense, i.e. as practised among
Christians, has motivated joint Eucharistic celebrations
with Protestants, such as at Strasbourg. The Anglicans
were invited to Chartres Cathedral to celbrate
"Eucharistic Communion" . The only celebration which is
not allowed, either at Chartres, or at Strasbourg, or at
Marseilles, is that of Holy Mass according to the rite
codified by Saint Pius V.
What conclusion can be drawn from all this by a
Catholic who sees Church authorities condoning such
scandalous ceremonies? If all religions are equal value, he
could very well work out his salvation with Buddhists or
Protestants. He is running the risk of losing faith in the

true Church. This in fact is what is suggested to him.
They want to submit the Church to natural law; they
want to put it on the same footing with other religions.
They refuse to say - even priests, seminarists and seminary
professors - that the Catholic Church is the only Church,
that she possesses the truth, that she alone is able to lead
men to salvation through Jesus Christ. "The Church is
only a spiritual leaven within society, but the same as
other religions; a bit more that the others, perhaps ... "
They sometimes grant it a slight superiority, if you press
them.
If this is the case, then the Church is merely useful; she
is no longer indispensible. She is only one of the means of
salvation.
We must say it clearly: such a concept is radically
opposed to Catholic dogma. The Church is the one ark of
salvation, and we must not be afraid to affirm it. You
have often heard it said, "Outside the Church there is no
salvation" - a dictum which offends contemporary minds.
It is easy to believe that this doctrine is no longer in effect,
that it has been dropped. It seems excessively severe.
Yet nothing, in fact, has changed; nothing can be
changed in this area. Our Lord did not found a number
of churches: He founded only One. There is only one
Cross by which we can be saved, and that Cross has been
given to the Catholic Church. It has not been given to
others. To His Church, His mystical bride, Christ has
given all graces. No grace in the world, no grace in the
history of humanity is distributed except through her.
Does that mean that no Protestant, no Muslim, no
Buddhist or animist will be saved? No, it would be a
second error to think that. Those who cry for intolerance
in interpreting St. Cyprian's formula, "Outside the
Church there is no salvation," also reject the Creed, "I
confess one baptism for the remission of sins", and are
insufficiently instructed as to what baptism is. There are
three ways of receiving it: the baptism of water; the
baptism of blood (that of the martyrs who confessed their
faith while still catechumens) and baptism of desire.
ECUMENlSM 81
Baptism of desire can be explicit. Many times in Africa

I heard one of our catechumens say to me, "Father,
baptise me straightaway because if I die before you come
again, I shall go to hell". I told him, "No, if you have no
mortal sin on your conscience and if you desire baptism,
then you already have the grace in you" .
The doctrine of the Church also recognises implicit
baptism of desire. This consists in doing the will of God.
God knows all men and He knows that amongst
Protestants, Muslims, Buddhists and in the whole of
humanity there are men of good will. They receive the
grace of baptism without knowing it, but in an effective
way. In this way they become part of the Church.
The error consists in thinking that they are saved by
their religion. They are saved in their religion but not by
it. There is no Buddhist church in heaven, no Protestant
church. This is perhaps hard to accept, but it is the truth.
I did not found the Church, but rather Our Lord the Son
of God. As priests we must state the truth.
But at the cost of what difficulties do people in those
countries where Christianity has not penetrated come to
receive baptism by desire! .rror is an obstacle to the Holy
Ghost. This explains why the Church has always sent
missionaries into all countries of the world, why
thousands of them have suffered martyrdom. If salvation
can be found in any religion, why cross the seas, why
subject oneself to unhealthy climates, to a harsh life, to
sickness and an early death? From the martyrdom of St.
Stephen onwards (t' .e first to give his life for Christ, and
for this reason his feast is the day after Christmas), the
Apostles set out to spread the Good News throughout the
Mediterranean countries. Would they have done this if
one could be saved by worshipping Cybele or by the
mysteries of Eleusis? Why did Our Lord say to them, "Go
and preach the Gospel to all nations"?
It is amazing that nowadays certain people want to let
everyone find his own way to God according to the beliefs
prevailing in his own "cultural milieu". A bishop once
told a priest who wanted to convert the little Muslims,
"No, teach them to be good Muslims; that will be much
82 AN OPt:N LETTER TO CONFUSED CATHOLICS
better than making Catholics of them". I am assured and

know for certain that before the Council the Taize
community wanted to abjure their errors and become
Catholics. The authorities said to them, "No, wait. After
the Council you will be the bridge between Catholics and
Protestants". Those who gave this reply took on a great
responsibility before God, because grace comes often only
at a given moment; it may perhaps not come again. At
the present time the brethren of Taize are still outside the
Church, sowing confusion in the minds of the young
people who visit them.
I have spoken of the conversions which have abruptly
fallen in countries like the United States - where they
used to amount to 170,000 a year - and Great Britain and
Holland. The missionary spirit has faded away because of
the wrong definition of the Church and because of the
Conciliar declaration on religious liberty of which I must
now speak.
11. Religious Liberty
Among all the documents of the Council, it was the

schema on religious liberty which led to the most
acrimonious discussions. This is easily explained by the
influence of the liberals and the interest taken in this
matter by the hereditary enemies of the Church. Now,
twenty years later, we see that our fears were not exagg
erated when the text was promulgated as a declaration
comprising all the concepts opposed to tradition and to
the teaching of recent popes. How true it is that all false
or ambiguously expressed principles will inevitably reveal
their implicit errors. Later in this chapter I shall show
how the attacks on Catholic education by the Socialist
government in France are the logical consequence of the
new definition given to religious liberty by Vatican II.
A little theology will help us toward a proper under
standing of the spirit in which this declaration was drawn
up. The initial - and, in fact, new - argument was based
on the freedom of every man to practice inwardly and
outwardly the religion of his choice, on the basis of "the
dignity of the human person". In this view, liberty is
based on dignity, which gives it its raison d'etre. Man can
hold any error whatever in the name of his dignity.
This is putting the cart before the horse. For whoever
clings to error loses his dignity and can no longer build
upon it. Rather, the foundation of liberty is truth, not
dignity. "The truth will make you free," said Our Lord.
What is dignity? According to Catholic tradition, man
derives dignity from his perfection, i.e., from his
knowledge of the truth and his acquisition of the good.
Man is worthy of respect in accordance with his intention
to obey God, not in accordance with his errors, which will
inevitably lead to sin. When Eve the first sinner
succumbed, she said, "The serpent deceived me". Her sin
and that of Adam led to the downfall of human dignity,
from which we have suffered ever since.
We cannot then make the downfall the cause of liberty.
On the contrary, adherence to truth and the love of God
are the principles of authentic religious liberty, which we

can define as the liberty to render to God the worship due
to Him and to live according to His commandments.
If you have followed my argument, you see that
religious liberty cannot be applied to false religions; it
does not allow of being split up in this way; the only right
that must be recognised by the state is that of the citizens
to practice Christ's religion.
This will certainly seem an exorbitant claim to those
who do not have the Faith. But the Catholic uncontam
inated by the spirit of the times will find it quite normal
and legitimate. Unfortunately many Christians have lost
sight of these realities: it has been so often repeated that
we must respect other people's ideas, put ourselves in
their place, accept their point of view. The nonsensical
"everyone to his own truth" has become the rule;
dialogue has become the highest cardinal virtue, dialogue
which necessarily leads to concessions. Through
misplaced charity the Christian has come to think that he
must go one step further than his interlocutors: he is
usually the only one to do so.He no longer sacrifices him
self for the truth, as the martyrs did. Instead, he sacrifices
the truth.
On the other hand, the increase in the number of
secular states in Christian Europe has accustomed people
to secularism and has led them to adapt to things
contrary to the Church's teaching. But doctrine cannot
be adapted; it is fixed and defined once and for all.
At the Central Preparatory Commission before the
Council, two schemas were submitted, one by Cardinal
Bea under the title "Religious Liberty", the other by
Cardinal Ottaviani under the title "Religious
Tolerance". The first filled fourteen pages without any
reference to documents of the magisterium. The second
covered seven pages of text and sixteen pages of
references, from Pius VI (1790) to John XXIII (1959).
Cardinal Bea's schema contained, in my view and in
that of a considerable number of the Fathers,
propositions not in accord with the eternal truths of the
Church. We read, for example, "This is why we must
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 85
praise the fact that in our day liberty and religious

equality are proclaimed by many nations and by the
International Organisation for the Rights of Man".
Cardinal Ottaviani, on the other hand, set forth the
question correctly: "Just as the civil power considers it
right to protect its citizens from the seductions of error ...
so it may also regulate and moderate the public
expression of other forms of worship and defend its
citizens against the diffusion of false doctrines which, in
the judgment of the Church, endanger their eternal
salvation" .
Leo XIII, in Rerum Novarum, said that the common
temporal good, the aim of civil society, is not purely of
the material order but is "principally a moral good".
Man is organised in society for the good of all. How can
one exclude the supreme good, i.e., the blessedness of
heaven, from the scheme of things?
There is another aspect of the Church's role in denying
freedom to false religions. The propagation of false ideas
naturally exerts more influence upon the weakest, the
least educated. Who will challenge the duty of the State
to protect the weak? This is its primary duty, the raison
d'etre of an organised society. It defends its subjects from
outside enemies, it protects their everyday life against
thieves, murderers, criminals and aggressors of all sorts.
Even secular states offer protection in the area of morals
by banning, for example, pornographic magazines
(although the situation in this respect has greatly
deteriorated in France in the last few years and is at its
worst in countries like Denmark.) Nevertheless, civilized
Christian countries long retained a sense of their oblig
ations towards the most vulnerable, particularly children.
People have remained sensitive in this matter and
through family associations calIon the state to take the
necessary measures. Radio programmes in which vice is
too prominent can be banned - although nobody is
obliged to listen to them - on the ground that, since many
children have radios, they are no longer protected. The
teaching of the Church in this regard, which might seem
excessively severe, is thus in accord with reason and
common sense.
It is the current fashion to reject all forms of constraint
and to bemoan its influence at certain periods of history.
Pope John Paul II, deferring to this fad, deplored the
Inquisition during his visit to Spain. But it is only the
excesses of the Inquisition that are remembered. What is
forgotten is that the Church, in creating the Holy Office
(Sanctum Officium Inquisitionis), was fulfilling its duty
in protecting souls and proceeded against those who were
trying to falsify the Faith and thus endangering the
eternal salvation of everyone. The Inquisition came to the
help of the heretics themselves, just as one goes to the
help of persons who jump into the water to end their lives.
Would we accuse the rescuers of exerting an intolerable
constraint upon these unfortunates? To make another
comparison, I do not think it would occur to a Catholic,
even a confused one, to complain of a government's ban
on drugs, contending that it is exercising constraint upon
drug addicts.
Everyone understands that the father of a family will
bring up his children in his faith. In the Acts of the
Apostles the centurion Cornelius, touched by grace,
received baptism" and all his household with him". King
Clovis in the same way was baptised together with his
soldiers.
The benefits that the Catholic religion brings with it
show how deluded is the attitude of the post-conciliar
clergy who renounce any pressure, or even influence, on
non-believers. In Africa, where I spent the major part of
my life, the missions fought against the scourges of
polygamy, homosexuality, and the contempt in which
women are held. The degraded position of women in
Islamic society is well known: she becomes a slave or
chattel as soon as Christian civilisation disappears. There
can be no doubt of the right of the truth to prevail and to
replace false religions. And yet in practice the Church
does not prescribe blindly and intransigently regarding
the expression of false religions in public. She has always
said that they could be tolerated by the authorities in
order to avoid a greater evil. That is why Cardinal
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 87
Ottaviani preferred the term "religious tolerance".

If we put ourselves in the postion of a Catholic state
where the religion of Christ is officially recognised, we see
that this tolerance can avoid troubles which may be
harmful to the whole. But in a secular society professing
neutrality, the law of the Church will surely not be
observed. What, you will then ask, is the good of
maintaining it?
First of all, it is not a question of a human law that can be
abrogated or altered. Secondly, abandoning a principle
has serious consequences. We have already noted a
number of them.
The agreements between the Vatican and certain
nations which had rightly granted a privileged status to
the Catholic religion have been modified. This is the
situation in Spain and more recently in Italy, where the
catechism is no longer compulsory in the schools. How far
will they go? Have these new legislators of human nature
realised that the Pope is also the head of a state? Will he
be compelled to secularise the Vatican and authorise the
construction of a mosque and a Protestant church in it?
Catholic Stcll~S themselves are disappearing. In the
world today there are Protestant States, an Anglican
state, Moslem states, Marxist states - and yet they think
there should be no more Catholic states! Catholics will no
longer be entitled to work to establish them; they will be
allowed only to maintain the religious neutrality of the
state!
Pius IX called this "madness" and "the freedom of
perdition" Leo XIII condemned religious indifference of
the state. 1s what was right in their times no longer so?
We cannot insist upon the freedom of all religious
societies, within human society, without at the same time
granting them moral liberty. Islam allows polygamy;
Protestants - depending on the particular sect - have
more or less lax positions on the indissolubility of mar
riage and on contraception. The criterion of good and
evil is disappearing. Abortion is no longer illegal in
Europe, except in Catholic Ireland. It is impossible for
the Church of God to condone these abuses by affirming
religious liberty.
Another consequence affects Catholic schools. The
state can no longer grant that Catholic schools should
exist and that they should have the lion's share of private
education. It places them on the same footing, as we have
seen, with the schools of non-Catholic sects, and says,
"If we allow you to exist, we must do the same for the
Moonies and every community of this type, even those of
bad repute". And the Church cannot argue! The Socialist
government in France has taken advantage of the Declar
ation on Religious Liberty and tried to merge Catholic
schools with the others and demand that the resulting
institutions observe just the natural law . Or else they have
been opened to children of all religions, congratulating
themselves at having more Moslem children than
Christians in some areas.
This is why the Church, by accepting the status of
common right in civil society, runs the risk of becoming
merely one sect among others. She even runs the risk of
disappearing, since it is obvious that truth cannot
concede rights to error without denying itself.
The Catholic schools in France have adopted - for the
purpose of public demonstrations - a certain song, which
is beautiful in itself, but with words betraying this
pernicious spirit of "liberty, the only truth". Liberty,
considered as an absolute good, is a chimera. Applied to
religion, it leads to doctrinal relativism and practical
indifference. Confused Catholics must hold to the words
of Christ which I quoted, "The truth will make you free".
12. Comrades and Fellow-Travellers
Let us take up where we left off. Christian common sense

is offended in every way by this new religion. Catholics
are exposed to desacralisation on all sides; everything has
been changed. They are told that all religions bring
salvation; the Church welcomes without distinction
separated Christians and in fact all believers, whether
they bow to Buddha or to Krishna. They are told that
clergy and laity are equal members of the "People of
God", so that lay people designated for particular
functions take over the clergy's tasks. We see them
conducting funerals and taking Viaticum to the sick,
while the clergy take up the functions of the laity, dress
like them, work in factories, join trade unions and engage
in politics. The new Canon law supports all this. It
confers unheard-of prerogatives on the laity, blurring the
distinction between them and priests and creating so
called" rights" . Lay theologians hold chairs of theology in
Catholic universities, the faithful take over roles in divine
worship which were once reserved to those in clerical
orders: they administer some of the sacraments, they
distribute holy communion and serve as witnesses at
weddings.
We also read that the Church of God "subsists" in the
Catholic Church a suspicious formula, because
immemorial doctrine has always said that the Church of
God is the Catholic Church. If we accept this recent
formula, it would seem that Protestant and Orthodox
communions form equal parts of the Church - which
cannot be, since they have separated themselves from the
one Church founded by Jesus Christ: Credo in UNAM
sanctam Ecclesiam.
The new Canon Law was drawn up in such haste and
confusion that, although promulgated in January 1983,
a hundred and fourteen modifications had been added by
November of the same year. This too is disconcerting to
Christians who are accustomed to think of Church law as
something permanent.
If the father of a family (whether or not a regular

church-goer) wants his children to be well educated, he is
bound to be disappointed. Catholic schools are in many
cases mixed, sex education is given, religious instruction
has disappeared in the higher classes, and it is not
unusual to find teachers with Liberal or even Communist
leanings. In one case which caused an uproar in the west
of France, a teacher was removed owing to pressure from
parents, then reinstated by diocesan authorities. He de
fended himself by saying, "Six months after starting at
Our Ladys (School), the father of one pupil wanted to get
rid of me simply because I had shown myself from the
start to be left-wing in every respect - political, social and
religious. According to him, one could not be both a
philosophy teacher in a Catholic school and a Socialist. "
Another incident occurred in the north of France. A
new head teacher was appointed to a school by the
diocesan authorities. After a short time the parents
learned that he was a militant member of a left-wing
union, that he was a laicised priest, married and with
children apparently not baptised. At Christmas he
organised a party for the pupils and their parents with the
support of a group which was known to be Communist.
In such circumstances Catholics of goodwill must wonder
if it is worthwhile to make sacrifices to send their children
to Catholic schools.
At a girls' school in the heart of Paris, a chaplain from
the prison at Fresnes came to the catechism class, accom
panied by a young (eighteen-year-old) inmate. He
explained to the pupils how lonely the prisoners were,
how they needed affection, outside contacts and letters.
Any girl wishing to become such a "godmother" could
give her name and address. But no mention of this must
be made to parents because they would not understand.
It had to remain confidential among the young people.
Elsewhere there was a teacher about whom complaints
were received - this time from a group of parents
because she had taught her children sections of the
catechism and the Hail Mary. She was supported by the
Bishop, as was quite right. But it seemed so unusual that
COMRADES AND FELLOWTRAVELLERS 91
his letter was reprinted in a teachers' magazine as some

thing sensational.
What is to be made of all this? Catholic schools, when
the French government decided to do away with them,
proved vulnerable because in almost all cases, they had in
one way or another ceased to fulfil their mission. Their
opponents found it easy to say, "What are you doing for
the educational system? Weare doing exactly the same
thing as you. Why have two systems?" Of course we still
find some reservoirs of faith, and we must pay tribute to
the many teachers who are conscious of their responsibil
ities. But Catholic education no longer asserts itself
clearly when confronted with state schooling. It has gone
a good halfway along the road that the zealots of
secularism want it to go. I have been told that at demon
strations some groups have caused scandal by shouting,
"We want God in our schools!" The organisers had
secularised the songs, slogans and speeches as much as
possible in order (so they said) not to embarrass those who
had come along without religious positions, including
unbelievers and even atheistic Socialists.
Is it dabbling in politics to want to remove Socialism
and Communism from our schools? Catholics have always
rightly thought that the Church was opposed to these
doctrines becuase of the militant atheism they profess.
Communism holds radically different views about the
meaning of life, the destiny of nations and the way in
which society is moving. It is all the more astonishing,
therefore, to read in Le Monde for the 5th June 1984 that
Mgr. Lustiger (Archbishop of Paris), in reply to questions
put by the paper and while making some very correct
observations along the way, complained of having seen an
historical opportunity lost with Parliament's vote on
Catholic schools. This opportunity, he said, consisted in
finding some basic values in common with the Socialist
Communists for the education of children. What basic
values can there be in common between the Marxist left
and Christian doctrine? They are completely opposed to
each other.
Yet Catholics observe with amazement that dialogue
between the Church hierarchy and Communists is intens

ifying. Soviet leaders and also a terrorist such as Yasser
Arafat are received at the Vatican. The Council set the
fashion by refusing to renew the condemnation of
Communism. Finding no mention of it in the schemas
submitted to them, 450 bishops - we would do well to
remember - signed a letter calling for an amendment to
this effect. They were referring to previous
condemnations and in particular to the statement of Pius
XI which described Communism as "intrinsically evil",
meaning that there are not negative and positive elements
in this ideology, but that it must be rejected in its
entirety. We remember what happened: the amendment
was not conveyed to the Fathers. The Secretariat General
said they knew nothing about it. Then the Commission
admitted having received it, but too late. This is not true.
It caused a scandal which ended, on the Pope's orders,
with an appendix to the Constitution Gaudium et Spes
containing an additional remark on Communism.
How many statements by bishops have been made to
justify and even to encourage collaboration with
Communism, regardless of what Communism professes!
"It is not up to me; it is for Christians who are responsible
adults," said Bishop Matagrin, "to see under what
conditions they can collaborate with the Communists" .
For Bishop Delorme, Christians must "fight for more
justice in the world alongside all those who strive for
justice and freedom, including the Communists". The
same tune from Bishop Poupard, who urges "working
with all men of goodwill for justice in all areas where a
new world is being tirelessly built up". According to one
diocesan magazine, the funeral oration of a worker-priest
went like this: "He opted for a world of workers on the
occasion of the local council elections. He could not be
everybody's priest. He chose those who made the choice of
Socialist society. It was hard for him. He made enemies,
but also many new friends. Little Paul was a man in his
place". A short while ago one bishop persuaded priests
not to talk in their parishes about "Help to the Church in
Need", saying, "My impression is that this work appears
COMRADES AND FELLOWTRAVELLERS 93
in too exclusively an anti -Communist light".

We notice with bewilderment that the excuse for this
sort of collaboration lies in the intrinsically false idea that
the aim of the Communist party is to establish justice and
freedom. We must remember the words of Pius IX on this
point: "If the faithful allow themselves to be deceived by
those fomenting the present intrigues, if they agree to
conspire with them for the evil systems of Socialism and
Communism, let them realize and reflect, they are laying
up for themselves treasures of vengeance on the day of
wrath; and in the meantime there will come forth from
this conspiracy no temporal advantage for the people but
rather an increase of misery and calamities".
To see the accuracy of this warning - given in 1849,
nearly 140 years ago - we only need to look at what is hap
pening in all the countries that have come under the yoke
of Communism. Events have proved the Pope of the
Syllabus right, yet in spite of this the illusion remains just
as bright and strong as ever. Even in Poland, a profound
ly Catholic country, the pastors no longer treat the
Catholic Faith and the salvation of souls as of primary
importance, for which all sacrifices must be accepted,
including that of life itself. What matters most to them is
avoiding a break with Moscow, and this enables Moscow
to reduce the Polish people to an even more complete
slavery without serious resistance.
Father Floridi shows clearly the results of the
compromise policy of the Vatican's Ostpolitik: "It is a
known fact (he says) that the Czechoslovakian bishops
consecrated by Cardinal Casaroli are collaborators of
the regime, as are the bishops dependent on the Patriar
chate of Moscow. Happy to have been able to place a
bishop in each diocese of Hungary, Pope Paul VI paid
homage to Janos Kadar, First Secretary of the Hungarian
Communist Party and "principal promoter and authority
in the normalisation of relations between the Holy See
and Hungary". But the Pope did not tell the high price
paid for this normalisation: the installation in important
IRev. Ulisse Floridi, Moscoui and the Vatican, Editions France Empire.
posinons in the Church of "peace priests". In fact,

Catholics were stupefied when they heard Cardinal Laszlo
Lekai, the successor of Cardinal Mindszenty, promise to
step up talks between Catholics and Marxists. Speaking of
the intrinsic evil of Communism, Pius XI added, "and
one can identify no grounds for collaboration with it by
anyone who wishes to save Christian civilisation" .
This departure from the teaching of the Church, added
to those I have already enumerated, obliges us to say that
the Vatican is now occupied by Modernists and men of
this world who believe there is more effectiveness to be
found in human and diplomatic artifices for the salvation
of the world that in what was instituted by the divine
Founder of the Church.
I have mentioned Cardinal Mindszenty; like him, all
the heroes and martyrs of Communism, in particular
Cardinals Beran, Stepinac, Synszinski and Slipyj, are
embarrassing to present Vatican diplomats, and it must
be said, are silent reproofs to them; they are now fallen
asleep in the Lord.
The same contacts have been established with Free
masonary, in spite of the unambiguous declaration by the
Congregation for the Faith in February 1981, which was
preceded by a declaration from the German Bishops'
Conference in April 1980. But the new Canon Law makes
no mention of it and deliverately imposes no sanctions.
Catholics have recently found that B'nai B'rith Masons
have been received at the Vatican and recently the
Archbishop of Paris met for talks with the Grand Master
of a Masonic lodge. In the meantime, certain churchmen
are trying to reconcile this Synagogue of Satan with the
Church of Christ.
They reassure Catholics by telling them, as for every
thing else, "The former condemnation of the sects was
perhaps justified, but the Masonic brotherhood is not
what it used to be" . But see how they go about their work.
The scandal of the P2 Lodge in Italy is still fresh in
people's minds. In France there is no doubt whatever that
the civil laws against Catholic private education were
above all the work of Grand Orient Freemasonary, which
COMRADES AND FELLOW TRAVELLERS 95
has increased its pressure upon the President of the
Republic and his associates within the government and
cabinet ministries, to the end that "the great unified
National education service" may at last become a reality.
For once they have acted openly. Some newspapers such
as Le Monde have given a regular account of their
manoeuvres; their planning and their strategy have been
published in their magazines.
Do I need to point out that Freemasonary is what it has
always been? The former Grand Master of the Grand
Orient, Jacques Mitterand, admitted on the radio in
1969, "We have always had bishops and priests in our
lodges," and made the following profession of faith: "If
to place man upon the altar in place of God is the sin of
Lucifer, then all humanists since the Renaissance have
committed this sin". This was one of the complaints
against the Freemasons when they were excommunicated
for the first time by Pope Clement XII in 1738. In 1982,
the Grand Master Georges Marcou said, "It is the
problem of man which is paramount". At the forefront of
his concerns when he was re-elected was subsidising
abortion by the National Health Service, saying,
"Women's economic equality depends on this step".
Freemasons have penetrated into the Church. In 1976
it was discovered that the man at the centre of the
liturgical reforem Mgr. Bugnini, was a Freemason. And
we can be sure he was not the only one. The veil covering
the greatest mystery hidden from the clergy and faithful
has begun to tear . We see more and more clearly with the
passing of time - but so do the Church's secular enemies.
"Something has changed within the Church," wrote
Jacques Mitterand; "and replies given by the Pope to the
most urgent questions, such as priestly celibacy and birth
control, are hotly debated within the Church itself; the
word of the Sovereign Pontiff is questioned by bishops, by
priests, by the faithful. For a Freemason, a man who
questions dogma is already a Freemason without an
apron" .
Another brother, Mr. Marsandon of the Scottish Rite,
spoke as follows of the ecumenism nurtured during the
Council: "Catholics, especially the conservatives, must

not forget that all roads lead to God. And they will have
to accept that this courageous idea of freethinking, which
we can really call a revolution, pouring forth from our
Masonic lodges, has spread magnificently over the dome
of St. Peter's".
I should again like to quote for you a text which throws
light on this question and shows which side hopes to
prevail over the other in the contacts advocated by Fr. Six
and Fr. Riquet. It is an extract from the Masonic review
Humanism, the issue for November/December 1968:
"Amongst the pillars which will collapse most easily, we
mention the doctrinal power endowed with infallibility,
which the First Vatican Council, one hundred years ago,
believed it had strengthened and which has sustained
some combined attacks following the publication of the
encyclical Humanae Vitae. The Real Presence in the
Eucharist, which the Church succeeded in imposing on
the medieval masses, will disappear with progress in
intercommunion and concelebration between Catholic
priests and Protestant pastors; the sacred character of the
priest, which derives from the institution of the
sacrament of orders, will give place to an elective and
temporary role; the distinction between the hierarchy
and the lower clergy will yield to the dynamic working
from the ba.se upwards, just as in every democracy; and
there will be the gradual disappearance of the ontological
and metaphysical nature of the sacraments and most
certainly the end of confession, sin having become in our
civilisation one of the most anachronistic notions that we
have inherited from the harsh philosophy of the Middle
Ages, which itself was heir to biblical pessimism."
You notice how interested the Freemasons are in the
Church's future - in order to devour her. Catholics need
to be aware of this, in spite of the sirens who would sing
them to sleep. All those destructive forces are closely
interrelated. Freemasonary describes itself as the
philosophy of Liberalism, which in its most extreme form
is Socialism. The whole comes under the term used by our
Lord: the gates of hell.
13. Religious Liberty, Collegial
Equality, Ecumenical Fraternity
How does it happen that the gates of hell are now causing
us so much trouble? The Church has always been
disturbed by persecution and heresies, by conflicts with
temporal powers, sometimes by immoral conduct of the
clergy, sometimes even of popes. But this time the crisis
seems to go much deeper, since it affects the Faith itself.
The Modernism we face is not a heresy like the others: it
is the main drain of all heresies. Persecution now comes
not only from outside but from within the Church. The
scandal of dissolute living, or just giving up, has become
endemic among the clergy, while the mercenaries who
abandon the sheep to the wolves are encouraged and
honoured.
I am sometimes accused of painting too black a picture
of the situation, of viewing it too disapprovingly, of
taking pleasure at being disgruntled over changes which
are perfectly logical and necessary. Yet the same Pope
who was the heart and soul of Vatican II commented
several times on the decomposition on which I have com
mented so sadly. On 7th December 1969 Paul VI said,
"The Church finds herself in a period of anxiety, of self-
criticism, one could say of self-destruction. It is like an
internal upheaval, serious and complex - as if the Church
were flagellating herself" .
The following year he added, "In many areas the
Council has not so far given us peace but has rather
stirred up troubles and problems that in no way serve to
strengthen the Kingdom of God within the Church or
within souls". Then, going on to raise a cry of alarm, on
29th June 1972 (Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul), "The
smoke of Satan has entered by some crack into the temple
of God; doubt, uncertainty, problems, restlessness, dis
satisfaction and confrontation have come to the surface ...
Doubt has entered our consciences".
Where is the crack? We can pinpoint the time with
precision. It was 1789, and its name, the Revolution. The
Masonic and anti-Catholic principles of the French

Revolution have taken two hundred years to enter
tonsured and mitred heads. Today this is an
accomplished fact. Such is the reality and the cause of
your perplexities, my confused Catholic readers. The
facts had to be before our eyes for us to believe them,
because we thought a priori that an undertaking of this
sort was impossible and incompatible with the very
nature of the Church, assisted as it is by the Spirit of
God.
In a well known article written in 1877, Bishop Gaume
gave us a personification of the Revolution. "1 am not
what you think I am. Many speak of me but few know
me. I am not Freemasonry, nor rioting, nor the changing
of the monarchy into a republic, not the substitution of
one dynasty for another, not temporary disturbance of
public order. I am not the shouts of the Jacobins, nor the
fury of the Montagne, nor the fighting on the barricades,
nor pillage, nor arson, nor the agricultural law, nor the
guillotine, nor the drownings. I am neither Marat nor
Robespierre, nor Babeuf nor Mazzini nor Kossuth. These
men are my sons but they are not me. These things are
my works but they are not me. These men and these
things are passing objects but I am a permanent state ... I
am the hatred of all order not established by man and in
which he himself is not both king and god".
Here is the key to the "changes" in the Church;
replacing a divine institution with one .set up by man, in
which man takes precedence over God. Man ruling over
everything, everything having its beginning and its
ending in him; to him we bow down.
Paul VI described this turnabout in his speech at the
end of the Council: "Profane and secular humanism has
shown itself in its own terrible stature and has in a sense
defied the Council. The religion of God made Man has
come up against the religion of man who makes himself
God" . He immediately added that in spite of this terrible
challenge, there had been no clash, no anathema. Alas!
By making a display of a "boundless sympathy for all
men", the Council failed in its duty to point out clearly
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. COLLEGIAL EQUALITY. ECUMENICAL FRATERNITY 99
that no compromise is possible between the two attitudes.
Even the closing speech seemed to give an impetus to
what we are seeing put into daily practice. "You can be
grateful to it (the Council) for this merit at least, you
modern humanists who deny the transcendence of the
supreme things, and learn to recognize our new
humanism: we too, we more than anyone else, subscribe
to the cult of man" .
Afterwards we heard coming from the same lips
statements developing this theme. "Men are basically
good and incline towards reason, towards order and
the common good". (Peace Day Message, 14th November
1970). "Both Christianity and democracy have a basic
principle in common; respect for the dignity and for the
value of the human person ... the advancement of the
complete man" (Manila, 20th November 1970). How can
we not be dismayed by this comparison when democracy,
which is a specifically secular system, ignores in man his
characteristic as a redeemed child of God, the only
quality which grants him dignity? The advancement of
man is certainly not the same thing when seen by a
Christian and by an unbeliever.
The pontifical message becomes more secularised on
each occasion. At Sydney on 3rd December 1970, we were
startled to hear, "Isolation is no longer permissible; the
time has come for a great solidarity amongst mankind
and the establishment of a world-wide united and
brotherly community". Peace amongst all men,
certainly, but Catholics are no longer acknowledging the
words of Christ, "My peace I give to you, not as the world
gives, give I unto you". The bond which unites earth to
heaven seems to be broken. "Ah well, we live in a
democracy! That means the people are in charge; power
comes from numbers, from the people". (Paul VI, 1st
January 1970). Jesus said to Pilate, "You would have no I
power over me if it had not been given to you from

above". Power comes from God and not from numbers,
even if the choice of the leader has been made by an
elective process. Pilate was the representative of a pagan
nation and yet he could do nothing without the
permission of the Heavenly Father.

And now we have democracy entering into the Church.
The new Canon Law teaches that power resides in the
"People of God". This tendency towards bringing what
they call the base into sharing the exercise of power can
be found all through present structures - synod, episcopal
conferences, priests' councils, pastoral councils, Roman
commissions, national commissions, etc.; and there are
equivalents in the religious orders.
This democratisation of the magisterium represents a
mortal danger for millions of bewildered and infected
souls to whom the spiritual doctors bring no relief
because it has ruined the efficacy with which the personal
magisterium of the pope and bishops was formerly
endowed. A question concerning faith or morals is
submitted to numerous theological commissions, who
never come up with an answer because their members are
divided both in their opinions and in their methods. We
need only read the precedural accounts of the assemblies
at all levels to realise that collegiality of the magisterium
is equivalent to paralysis of the magisterium.
Our Lord instructed individuals, not a collectivity, to
tend His sheep. The Apostles obeyed Our Lord's orders,
and until the twentieth century it was thus. These days we
hear of the Church being in a state of permanent council,
continual collegiality. The results have become apparent.
Everything is upside down, the faithful no longer know
which way to turn.
The democratisation of government was followed quite
naturally by the democratisation of the magisterium
which took place under the impulse of the famous slogan
"collegiality" , spread abroad by the Communist,
Protestant and progressive press.
They have collegialised the pope's government and
that of the bishops with a presbyteral college, that of the
parish priest with a lay council, the whole broken down
into innumerable commissions, councils, sessions, etc.
The new Code of Canon Law is completely permeated
with this concept. The pope is described as the head of
the College of Bishops. We find this doctrine already
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. COLLEGIAL EQUALITY. ECUMENICAL FRATERNITY 101
suggested in the Council document Lumen Gentium,

according to which the College of Bishops, together with
the pope, exercises supreme power in the Church in
habitual and constant manner.
This is not a change for the better; this doctrine of
double supremacy is contrary to the teaching and
magisterium of the Church. It is contrary to the defin
itions of Vatican Council I and to Pope Leo XIII's encyc
lical Satis Congnitum. The Pope alone has supreme
power; he communicates it only to the degree he con
siders advisable, and only in exceptional circumstances.
The pope alone has power of jurisdiction over the whole
world.
Weare witnessing therefore a restriction on the
freedom of the Supreme Pontiff. Yes, this is a real
revolution! The facts demonstrate that what we have here
is not a cha.nge without practical consequences. John
Paul II is the first pope to be really affected by the
reform. We can quote several precise instances where he
has reconsidered a decision under pressure from a
bishops' conference. The Dutch Catechism received the
imprimatur from the Archbishop of Milan without the
modifications requested by the Commission of Cardinals.
It was the same with the Canadian Catechism. In that
connection I heard someone in authority in Rome say,
"What can we do when faced with a bishops' con
ference?"
The independence assumed by the conferences has also
been illustrated in France with regard to the catechisms.
The new books are contrary in almost every respect to the
Apostolic Exhortation Catechesi Tradendae. The ad
limina visit by the bishops of the Paris area in 1982
consisted in their getting the Pope to ratify a catechism
which he openly disapproved. The allocution delivered
by John Paul II at the end of the visit had all the signs of a
compromise, thanks to which the bishops were able to
return in triumph to their own country and continue with
their pernicious practices. Cardinal Ratzinger's lectures
in Paris and Lyons indicate clearly that Rome has not
endorsed the reasons given by the French bishops for
installing a new doctrine and orientation, but the Holy

See has been reduced by this kind of pressure to proceed
ing by suggestions and advice, instead of issuing the
orders needed to put things on the right track, and when
necessary to condemn, as the popes have hitherto always
done, as guardians of the deposit of faith.
The bishops, whose authority would thereby seem to be
increased, are the victims of a collegiality which paralyses
the running of their dioceses. So many complaints are
made on this subject by the bishops themselves,
complaints which are very instructive! In theory the
bishop can in a number of cases act against the wishes of
the assembly. Sometimes even against the majority, if the
voting has not been submitted to the Holy See for
approval; but in practice this has proved impossible.
Immediately after the end of the meeting its decisions are
published by the secretary. They are thus known to all
priests and faithful; the news media divulge all the
essentials. What bishop could in fact oppose these
decisions without showing his disagreement with the
assembly and then immediately finding himself con
fronted with a number of revolutionary spirits who would
appeal against him to the assembly?
The bishop has become the prisoner of collegiality,
which should have been limited to a consultative group,
not a decision-making body. Even for the simplest things
he is no longer master in his own house. Soon after the
Council, while I was on a visitation of our communities,
the bishop of a diocese in Brazil came very obligingly to
meet me at the railway station.
"1 can't put you up at the bishop's house", he said,
"but I have had a room prepared for you at the minor
seminary". He took me there himself; the place was in an
uproar - young men and girls everywhere, in the corridors
and on the stairs. "These young men, are they
seminarists?" I asked. "Alas, no. Believe me, I am not at
all happy at having these young people at my seminary,
but the Bishops' Conference has decided that we must
from now on hold Catholic Action meetings in our
houses. These you see are here for a week. What can I do?
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY, COLLEGIAL EQUALITY, ECUMENICAL FRATERNITY 103
I can only do the same as the others" .

The powers conferred upon persons by divine right,
whether pope of bishops, have been confiscated for the
benefit of a group whose ascendency continues to grow.
Bishops' conferences, some will say, are not a recent
thing. Pius X gave them his approval at the beginning of
this century. That is correct, but that holy pope gave
them a definition which justified them. "We are per
suaded that these bishops' assemblies are of the greatest
importance for the maintenance and development of
God's kingdom in all regions and all provinces. Whenever
the bishops, the guardians of holy things, thereby bring
their lights together, the result is that not only do they
better perceive their people's needs and choose the most
suitable remedies, but they thereby also tighten the bonds
uniting them".
Consequently, they were bodies that did not in an
authoritarian manner take decisions binding on their
members, any more than do congresses of scientists
decide the way in which experiments must be carried out
in this or that laboratory.
The bishops' conference, however, now works like a
parliament; the permanent council of the French
episcopate is its executive body. The bishop is more like a
prefect or a commissioner of the Republic (to use the
fashionable terminology) than a successor of the Apostles
charged by the pope to govern a diocese.
In these assemblies they vote; the ballots are so
numerous that at Lourdes they have had to install an
electronic voting system. This results inevitably in the
creation of parties. The two things do not happen one
without the other. Parties mean divisions. When the
regular government is subjected to the consultative vote
in its normal functioning, then it is rendered ineffective.
Consequently the whole body suffers.
The introduction of collegiality has led to a
considerable weakening in its efficacity, in that the Holy
Ghost is more easily impeded and saddened by an
assembly than by an individual. When persons are
responsible, they act, they speak, even if some say
nothing. At meetings, it is the majority who decide. Yet

numbers do not make for the truth. Nor do. they make for
efficiency, as we have learnt after twenty years of
collegiality and as we might have presupposed without
making the experiment. The fable-writer spoke long ago
of the "many chapters which have been held for
nothing". Was it necessary to copy the political systems in
which decisions are justified by voting (since they no
longer have sovereign heads)? The Church possesses the
immense advantage of knowing what she must do to
further the Kingdom of God. Her leaders are appointed.
So much time is wasted in elaborated joint statements,
which are never satisfactory, because they have to take
everyone's opinion into account! So much travelling to
take part in commissions and sub-commissions, in select
committees and preparatory meetings! Bishop Etchgaray
said at Lourdes at the close of the 1978 Assembly, "We no
longer know which way to turn" .
The result is that the Church's powers of resistance to
Communism, heresy, immorality, have been considerably
weakened. This is what its opponents have been hoping
for and that is why they made such efforts, at the time of
the Council and after it, to urge her into the ways of
democracy.
If we look carefully, it is by means of its slogan that the
Revolution has penetrated the Church. "Liberty" - this is
the religious liberty we spoke of earlier, which confers
rights on error. "Equality" - collegiality and the
destruction of personal authority, the authority of God,
of the pope, of the bishops; in a word, majority rule.
Finally, "fraternity" is represented by ecumenism.
By these three words, the revolutionary idealogy of
1789 has become the Law and the Prophets. The
Modernists have achieved what they wanted.
14. "Vatican II is the French
Revolution in the Church"
The parallel I have drawn between the crisis in the
Church and the French F..evolution is not simply a
metaphorical one. The influence of the philosophes of
the eighteenth century, and of the upheaval that they
produced in the world, has continued down to our times.
Those who have injected that poison into the Church
admit it themselves. It was Cardinal Suenens who
exclaimed, "Vatican II is the French Revolution in the
Church" and among other unguarded declarations he
added "One cannot understand the French or the
Russian revolutions unless one knows something of the
old regimes which they brought to an end ... It is the same
in church affairs: a reaction can only be judged in
relation to the state of things that preceded it". What
preceded, and what he considered due for abolition, was
that wonderful heirarchical construction culminating in
the Pope, the Vicar of Christ on earth. He continued:
"The Second Vatican Council marked the end of an
epoch; and if we stand back from it a little more we see it
marked the end of a series of epochs, the end of an age".
Pere Congar, one of the artisans of the reforms, spoke
likewise: "The Church has had, peacefully, its October
Revolution." Fully vaware of what he was saying, he
remarked "The Declaration on Religious Liberty states
the opposite of the Syllabus." I could quote numbers of
admissions of this sort. In 1976 Fr. Gelineau, one of the
party-leaders at the National Pastoral and Liturgical
Centre removed all illusions from those who would like to
see in the N ovus Ordo something merely a little different
from the rite which hitherto had been universally
celebrated, but in no way fundamentally different: "The
reform decided on by the Second Vatican Council was the
signal for the thaw... Entire structures have come
crashing down ... Make no mistake about it. To translate
is not to say the same thing with the other words. It is to
change the form. If the form changes, the rite changes. If
one element is changed, the totality is altered ... It must

be said, without mincing words, the Roman rite we used
to know exists no more. It has been destroyed" . 1
The Catholic liberals have undoubtably established a
revolutionary situation. Here is what we read in the book
written by one of them, Monsignor Prelot 2 a senator for
the Doubs region of France. "We had struggled for a
century and a half to bring our opinions to prevail within
the Church and had not succeeded. Finally, there came
Vatican II and we triumphed. From then on the
propositions and principles of liberal catholicism have
been definitively and officially accepted by Holy
Church. "
It is through the influence of this liberal catholicism
that the Revolution has been introduced under the guise
of pacifism and universal brotherhood. The errors and
false principles of modern man have penetrated the
Church and contaminated the clergy thanks to liberal
popes themselves, and under cover of Vatican II.
It is time to come to the facts. To begin with, I can say
that in 1962 I was not opposed to the holding of a General
Council. On the contrary, I welcomed it with great
hopes. As present proof here is a letter I sent out in 1963
to the Holy Ghost Fathers and which has been published
in one of my previous books." I wrote: "We may say with
out hesitation, that certain liturgical reforms have been
needed, and it is to be hoped that the council will
continue in this direction". I recognized that a renewal
was indispensible to bring an end to a certain sclerosis
due to a gap which had developed between prayer,
confined to places of worship, and the world of action:
schools, the professions and public life.
I was nominated a member of the central preparatory
commission by the Pope and I took an assiduous and
enthusiastic part in its two years of work. The central
commission had the responsibility of checking and
examining all the preparatory schemas which came from
1 Demain la liturgic, Ed. du Cerf.
2 Le Cat holicisme Liberal, 1969.
3 A Bishop Speaks. Ed. Dominique Marin Morin.
-VATICAN II IS THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IN THE CHURCH- 107
the specialist commissions. I was in a good position there
fore to know what had been done, what was to be
examined, and what was to be brought before the
assembly.
This work was carried out very conscientiously and
meticulously. I still possess the seventy-two preparatory
schemas; in them the Church's doctrine is absolutely
orthodox. They were adapted in a certain manner to our
times, but with great moderation and discretion.
Everything was ready for the date announced and on
11 th October, 1962, the Fathers took their places in the
nave of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. But then an
occurence took place which had not been forseen by the
Holy See. From the very first days, the Council was
besieged by the progressive forces. We experienced it, felt
it; and when I say we, I mean the majority of the Council
Fathers at that moment.
We had the impression that something abnormal was
happening and this impression was rapidly confirmed;
fifteen days after the opening session not one of the
seventy-two schemas remained. All had been sent back,
rejected, thrown in the waste-paper basket.
This happened in the following way. It had been laid
down in the Council rules that two-thirds of the votes
would be needed to reject a preparatory schema. Now
when it was put to the vote there were 60% against the
schemas and 40 % in favour. Consequently the opposition
had not obtained the two-thirds, and normally the
Council would have proceeded on the basis of the
preparations made.
It was then that a powerful, a very powerful
organisation showed it hand, set up by the Cardinals
from those countries bordering the Rhine, complete with
a well-organised secretariat. They went to find the Pope,
John XXIII, and said to him: "This is inadmissible, Most
Holy Father; they want us to consider schemas which do
not have the majority" and their plea was accepted. The
immense work that had been accomplished was scrapped
and the assembly found itself empty-handed, with
nothing ready. What chairman of a board meeting,
however small the company, would agree to carryon

without an agenda and without documents? Yet that is
how the Council commenced.
Then there was the affair of the Council commissions
which had to be appointed. This was a difficult problem;
think of the bishops arriving from all countries of the
world and suddenly finding themselves together in St.
Peter's. For the most part, they did not know one
another; they knew three of four colleagues and a few
others by reputation out of the 2400 who were there. How
could they know which of the Fathers were the most
suitable to be members of the commission for the
priesthood, for example, or for the liturgy, or for canon
law?
Quite lawfully, Cardinal Ottaviani distributed to each
of them the list of the members of the pre-conciliar
commissions, people who in consequence had been
selected by the Holy See and had already worked on the
subjects to be debated. That could help them to choose
without there being any obligation and it was certainly to
be hoped that some of these experienced men would
appear in the commissions.
But then an outcry was raised. I don't need to give the
name of the Prince of the Church who stood up and made
the following speech: "Intolerable pressure is being
exerted upon the Council by giving names. The Council
Fathers must be given their liberty. Once again the
Roman Curia is seeking to impose its own members."
This crude outspokenness was rather a shock, and the
session was adjourned. That afternoon the secretary,
Mgr. Felici, announced "The I-Ioly Father recognizes that
it would perhaps be better for the Bishops' Conferences to
meet and draw up the lists".
The Bishops' Conferences at that time were still
embryonic; they prepared as best they could the lists they
had been asked for without, anyway, having been able to
meet as they ought, because they had only been given
twenty four hours. But those who have woven this plot
had theirs all ready with individuals specially chosen from
various countries. They were able to forestall the
WVATICAN II IS THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IN THE CHURCHW 109
conferences and in actual fact they obtained a large
majority. The result was that the commissions were
packed with two-thirds of the members belonging to the
progressist faction and the other third nominated by the
Pope.
New schemas were rapidly brought out, of a tendancy
markedly different to the earlier ones. I should one day
like to publish them both so that one can make the
comparison and see what was the Church's doctrine on
the eve of the Council.
Anyone who has some experience of either civil or
clerical meetings will understand the situation in which
the Fathers found themselves. In these new schemas,
although one could modify a few odd phrases or a few
propositions by means of amendments, one could not
change their essentials. The consequences would be
serious. A text which is biased to begin with can never be
entirely corrected. It retains the imprint of whoever
drafted it and the thoughts that inspired it. The Council
from then on was slanted. A third element contributed to
steering it in a liberal direction. In place of the ten
presidents of the Council who had been nominated by
John XXIII, Pope Paul VI appointed for the last two
sessions four moderators, of whom the least one can say is
that they were not chosen among the most moderate of
the cardinals. Their influence was decisive for the
majority of the Council Fathers.
The liberals constituted a minority, but an active and
organised minority, supported by a galaxy of modernist
theologians amongst whom we find all the names who
since then have laid down the law, names like Leclerc,
Murphy, Congar, Rahner, Kung, Schillebeeckx, Besret,
Cardonnel, Chenu, etc. And we must remember the
enormous output of printed matter by IDOC, the Dutch
information centre subsidised by the German and Dutch
Bishops' Conferences which all the time was urging the
Fathers to act in the manner expected of them by
international opinion. It created a sort of psychosis, a
feeling that one must not disappoint the expectations of
the world which is hoping to see the Church come round
to its views. So the instigators of this movement found it

easy to demand the immediate adaptation of the Church
to modern man, that is to say, to the man who wants to
free himself of all restraint. They made the most of a
Church deemed to be sclerotic, out of date, and powerless
beating their breasts for the faults of their predecessors.
Catholics were shown to be more guilty than the
Protestants and the Orthodox for the divisions of times
past; they should beg pardon of their "separated
brethren" present in Rome, where they had been invited
in large numbers to take part in the activities.
The Traditional Church having been culpable in its
wealth and in its triumphalism, the Council Fathers felt
guilty themselves at not being in the world and at not
being of the world, they were already beginning to feel
ashamed of their episcopal insignia; soon they would be
ashamed to appear wearing the cassock.
This atmosphere of liberation would soon spread to all
areas. The spirit of collegiality was to be the mantle of
Noah covering up the shame of wielding personal
authority, so contrary to the mind of twentieth century
man, shall we say, liberated man! Religious freedom,
ecumenism, theological research, and the revising of
canon law would attenuate the triumphalism of a Church
which declared itself to be the sole Ark of Salvation. As
one speaks of people being ashamed of their poverty, so
now we had ashamed bishops, who could be influenced
by giving them a bad conscience. It is a technique that
has been employed in all revolutions.
The consequences are visible in many places in the
annals of the Council. Read again the beginning of the
schema "The Church in the Modern World", on the
changes in the world today, the accelerated movement of
history, the new conditions affecting religious life, and
the predominence of science and technology. Who can
fail to see in these passages an expression of the purest
liberalism?
We could have had a splendid council by taking for our
master on the subject of Pope Pius XII. I do not think
there is any problem of the modern world and of current
*VATICAN II IS THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IN THE CHURCH* III
affairs that he did not resolve, with all his knowledge, his
theology and his holiness. He gave almost definitive
solutions, having truly seen things in the light of faith.
But things could not be seen so when they refused to
make it a dogmatic council. Vatican II was a pastoral
Council; John XXIII said so, Paul VI repeated it. During
the course of the sittings we several times wanted to define
a concept; but we were told: "We are not here to define
dogma and philosophy, we are here for pastoral
purposes". What is liberty? What is human dignity?
What is collegiality? Weare reduced to analysing the
statements indefinitely in order to know what they mean,
and we only come up with approximations because the
terms are ambiguous. And this was not through
negligence or by chance. Fr. Schillebeeckx admitted it.
"We have used ambiguous terms during the Council and
we know how we shall interpret them afterwards" . Those
people knew what they were doing.
All the other Councils that have been held during the
course of the centuries were dogmatic. All have
combatted errors. Now God knows what errors there are
to be combatted in our times! A dogmatic council would
have filled a great need. I remember Cardinal Wyszinsky
telling us: "you must prepare a schema upon
communism"; if there is a grave error menacing the
world today it is indeed that. If Pius XI believed there
was need of an encyclical on communism, it would also
be very useful for us, meeting here in plenary assembly, to
devote a schema to this question."
Communism, the most monstrous error ever emerged
from the mind of Satan, has official access to the
Vatican. Its world-wide revolution is particularly helped
by the official non-resistance of the Church and also by
the frequent support it finds there, in spite of the
desperate warnings of those cardinals who have suffered
in the gaols of the Eastern countries. The refusal of this
pastoral council to solemnly condemn it is enough in itself
to cover it with shame before the whole of history, when
one thinks of the tens of millions of martyrs, of the
Christians and dissidents scientifically de-personalized in
psychiatric hospitals and used as human guinea-pigs in

experiments. Yet the Council kept quiet. We obtained
the signatures of 450 bishops calling for a declaration
against communism. They were left forgotten in a
drawer. When the spokesman for "Gaudium et Spes"
replied to our questioning, he told us "There have been
two petitions calling for a condemnation of
communism". "Two!" we cried, "there are more than
400 of them". "Really, I know nothing about them". On
making enquiries, they were found, but it was too late.
These events I was involved in. It is I who carried the
signatures to Mgr. Felici, the Council Secretary,
accompanied by Mgr. de Proenca Sigaud, Archbishop of
Diamantina; and I am obliged to say there occurred
things that are truly inadmissible. I do not say this in
order to condemn the Council; and I am not unaware
that there is here a cause of confusion for a great many
Catholics. After all, they think, the Council was inspired
by the Holy Ghost.
Not necessarily. A non-dogmatic, pastoral council is
not a recipe for infallibility. When, at the end of the
sessions, we asked Cardinal Felici "Can you not give us
what the theologians call the theological note of the
Council". He replied "We have to distinguish according
to the schemas and the chapters those which have already
been the subject of dogmatic definitions in the past; as for
the declarations which have a novel character, we have to
make reservations."
Vatican II therefore is not a council like others and
that is why we have the right to judge it, with prudence
and reserve. I accept in this Council and in the reforms
all that is in full concordance with Tradition. The Society
I have founded is ample proof. Our seminaries in
particular comply perfectly with the wishes expressed by
the Council and with the "Ratio fundamentalis" of the
Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education.
But it is impossible to maintain it is only the later
applications of the Council that are at fault. The
rebellion of the clergy, the defiance of pontifical
authority, all the excesses in the liturgy and the new
-VATICAN II IS THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IN THE CHURCH- 113
theology, and the desertion of the churches, have they

nothing to do with the Council, as some have recently
asserted? Let us be honest: they are its fruits!
In saying this I realise that I merely increase the worry
and perplexity of my readers. But, however, among all
this tumult a light has shone forth capable of reducing to
nought the attempts of the world to bring Christ's Church
to an end. On the 30th June 1968 the Holy Father
published his Profession of Faith. It is an act which from
the dogmatic point of view is more important than all the
Council.
This Credo, drawn up by the successor of Peter to
affirm the faith of Peter, was an event of quite
exceptional solemnity. When the Pope rose to pronounce
it the Cardinals rose also and all the crowd wished to do
likewise, but he made them sit down again. He wanted to
be alone, as Vicar of Christ, to proclaim his Credo and he
did it with the most solemn of words, in the name of the
Blessed Trinity, before the holy angels and before all the
Church. In consequence, he has made an act which
pledges the faith of the Church.
We have thereby the consolation and the confidence of
feeling that the Holy Spirit has not abandoned us. We
can say that the Arch of Faith that sprang from the First
Vatican Council has found its other resting point in the
profession of faith of Paul VI.
15. The Marriage of the Church
and the Revolution
The Revolution, it has been said, expresses "the hatred of
all order that has not been established by man, and in
which he is not both king and god." At its origin we find
that pride which had already been the cause of Adam's
sin. And the revolution within the Church can be
explained by the pride of men of our times who believe
they are in a new age when man has finally "understood
his own dignity", and has acquired an increased aware
ness of himself "to the extent that one might speak of a
social and cultural metamorphosis whose efforts have had
repercussions on religious life. The very pace of history is
becoming so rapid that one is hard pressed to keep up
with it. In short, the human race is passing from a mainly
static conception of the order of things to a dynamic and
evolutive conception. The consequence is an immense
series of new problems which call for new analyses and
new syntheses. " 'These wonder-struck phrases which, with
many others of the same sort, occur in the Introduction to
Gaudium et Spes, the Pastoral Constitution on the
Church in the Modern World, are of ill-omen for a return
to the spirit of the Gospel. In so much change and
transformation, it is hard to see how this can survive.
And what is meant by the statement: "An industrial
type of society is spreading little by little, radically
transforming our ideas about life in society" except that
the writer is prophesying as a certainty what he wanted to
see appear: a concept of society that will have nothing in
common with the Christian concept expressed in the
Church's social doctrine? Presuppositions of that nature
can only lead to a new Gospel and a new religion. And
here it is! "The faithful, therefore, ought to work in close
conjunction with their contemporaries and try to get to
know their ways of thinking and feeling as they find them
expressed in current cultures. Let the faithful incorporate
the findings of new sciences and teachings and the under
standing of the most recent discoveries with Christian
THE MARRIAGE OF THE CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 115
morality and thought, so that their practice of religion

and moral behaviour may keep abreast of their
acquaintance with science and of the relentless progress
of technology: in this way they will evaluate and interpret
everything with an authentically Christian sense of
values.,,1 Strange advice, considering that we are
commanded by the Gospel to shun perverse doctrines!
And let it not be said that these theories can be under
stood in two ways: the current catechisms understand
them in the way Schillebeeckx wanted. They advise
children to listen to what atheists have to say because they
have much to learn from them; and besides, if they do
not believe in God they have their reasons, and these are
worth knowing! And the opening phrase of the first
chapter, "Believers and unbelievers agree almost
unanimously that all things on earth should be ordained
to man as to their centre and summit" can also be said to
be given a Christian meaning by what follows. It has,
nevertheless, a meaning in itself which is exactly what we
see being put into effect everywhere in the post-conciliar
Church, in the shape of a salvation reduced to economic
and social well- being.
For my part, I think that those believers who accept
this proposition as a common basis for dialogue with
unbelievers, and couple new theories with Christian
doctrine, will lose their faith, neither more or less. The
golden rule of the Church has been inverted by the pride
of the men of our time. No one listens any more to
Christ's ever-living and fruitful words, but to those of the
world. This "aggiornamento" condemns itself. The roots
of present-day disorder are to be found in this modern, or
rather modernist spirit which refuses to recognize the
creed, the commandments of God and the Church, the
sacraments, and Christian morality as the only source of
renewal until the end of the world. Dazzled by "technical
progress which will eventually go on to transform the face
of the earth and already is embarking on the conquest of
space" (Gaudium et Spes 5-1) churchmen, who must not
6Gaudium et Spes, 62. Translation from "Vatican Council II", ed. A. Flannery, G.P.
(Fowler Wright Books, 1975)
be confused with the Church, appear to think that Our

Lord could not have foreseen the present-day technolog
ical evolution and that consequently his message is no
longer appropriate.
The liberal's dream for the last century and a half has
been to unite the Church to the revolution. For a century
and a half also, the Popes have condemned liberal
catholicism. Among their most important documents we
can mention the bull A uctorem fidei by Pius VI against
the Council of Pistoia, the encyclical Quanta cura and
the Syllabus of Pius IX, the encyclical Immortale Dei of
Leo XIII against the new Right, the acts of St. Pius X
against the Sillon and modernism, especially the decree
Lamentabili, the encyclical Divini Redemptoris of Pius
XI against communism and the encyclical Humani
Generis of Pope Pius XII.
All these Popes have resisted the union of the Church
with the revolution; it is an adulterous union and from
such a union only bastards can come. The rite of the new
mass is a bastard rite, the sacraments are bastard sacra
ments. We no longer know if they are sacraments which
give grace or do not give it. The priests coming out of the
seminaries are bastard priests, who do not know what
they are. They are unaware that they are made to go up
to the altar, to offer the sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ
and to give Jesus Christ to souls.
In the name of the revolution, priests have been sent to
the scaffold, nuns have been persecuted and murdered.
Remember the pontoons of Nantes which were sunk out
at sea after they had filled them with faithful priests. And
yet what the revolution did is nothing compared to the
doings of Vatican II, because it would have been better
for those twenty or thirty thousand priests who have
abandoned their priesthood and the vows made before
God, to have been martyred and sent to the scaffold.
They would at least have saved their souls, whereas now
they risk losing them.
It is said that amongst these poor married priests,
many have already been divorced, many have already
applied to Rome for nullity of marriage. Can this be
THE MARRIAGE OF THE CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 11 7
called the good fruit of the Council? And twenty

thousand nuns in the United States and very many in
other countries, have broken the perpetual vows which
united them to Jesus Christ to run off and get married. If
they had mounted the scaffold they would at least have
born witness to their faith. The blood of the martyrs is the
seed of Christians, but the priests or simple faithful who
surrender to the spirit of the world will not bring forth a
harvest. The devil's greatest victory is to have undertaken
the destruction of the Church without making any
martyrs.
The adulterous union of the Church and the
Revolution is cemented by "dialogue". Our Lord said
"Go, teach all nations and convert them". He did not say
"Hold dialogue with them but don't try to convert them".
Truth and error are incompatible; to dialogue with error
is to put God and the devil on the same footing. This is
what the Popes have always repeated and what was easy
for Christians to understand because it is also a matter of
common sense. In order to impose different attitudes and
reflexes it was necessary to do some indoctrinating so as to
make modernists of the clergy needed to spread the new
doctrine. This is what is called "recycling", a
conditioning process intended to refashion the very
faculty God gave man to direct his judgment.
I have witnessed an operation of this sort in my own
congregation of which I was for a time the Superior
General. The first thing required is to "accept change" .
The Council has introduced changes, therefore we also
must change. Change in depth, since it is a case of
adapting the reasoning faculties to make them coincide
with arbitrarily conceived notions. We can read in a
booklet issued by the Archbishop's Office in Paris "The
Faith Word by Word": "The second operation is more
delicate and consists of registering the different ways that
Christians have of reacting, in these various changes, to
the very fact of change. This registering is important
because actual opposition is due more to a spontaneous
and sub-conscious attitude in face of change, than to
precise issues involved in the change.
"Two typical attitudes can be discerned, while

allowing for the possibility of intermediate ones. The first
means accepting a number of novelties one by one as they
are imposed. This is the case with many Christians, many
Catholics: they give in little by little.
"Those who take the second attitude accept a total
renewal of the expression of the Christian faith at the
threshold of a new cultural era, while always taking care
to keep close to the faith of the Apostles. "
This last phrase is a typical rhetorical safeguard of the
modernists. They always protest that their attitudes are
othodox, and seek to reassure by little phrases those who
would be alarmed at such prospects as "the total renewal
of the expression of Christian faith on the threshold of a
new cultural era". But one is already far gone when one
accepts such reassurances; and much good it will do to
venerate the faith of the Apostles when one has
demolished the faith entirely.
A third operation becomes necessary when this second
attitude is encountered: "The inquirer cannot help
feeling now that his faith is dangerously at risk. Will it
not simply vanish, together with the problems that have
brought it to that point? He therefore requires some
fundamental assurance which will enable him to go
beyond these sterile initial reasonings" .
So all degrees of resistance have been forseen. What is
the "fundamental assurance" that will be given the
neophyte in the last resort? The Holy Spirit! "I t is pre
cisely the Holy Spirit who assists believers in the turning
points of history. "
The goal is achieved: there IS no more any
Magisterium, no dogma, nor hierarchy; not Holy
Scripture even, in the sense of an inspired and historically
certain text. Christians are inspired directly by the Holy
Spirit.
The Church then collapses. The recycled Christian
becomes subject to every influence and receptive to every
slogan; he can be led anywhere, while grasping, if he
needs reassurance, at the declaration: "Vatican II
assuredly shows many signs of a change in the terms of the
THE MARRIAGE OF THE CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 119
inquiry. "
"The direct and immediate cause (of Modernism) lies
in a perversion of the mind" wrote Pius X in his encyclical
Pascendi. Recycling creates a similar mental perversion
in those who did not previously suffer from it. The holy
Pope also quoted this observation of his predecessor
Gregory XVI: "It is a sorry sight to see how far the
deviations of human reason will go as soon as one yields to
the spirit of novelty; when, heedless of the Apostle's
warning, one claims to know more than one needs to
know, and self-confidently seeks for truth outside the
Church instead of within it, where it is to be found
without the least shadow of error" 1
1 Singulari Nos, 1834

16. Neo-Modernism or the
Undermining of the Faith
In the complete revision which has taken place in the
Church's vocabulary, a few words have survived, and
Faith is one of them. The trouble is that is is used with so
many different meanings. There is, however, a definition
of faith, and that cannot be changed. It is to this that a
Catholic must refer when he no longer understands
anything of the garbled and pretentious language
addressed to him.
Faith is "the adherence of the intellect to the truth
revealed by the Word of Cod ". We believe in a truth that
comes from outside and which is not in some way
produced by our own mind. We believe it because of the
authority of God who reveals it to us, and there is no need
to seek elsewhere.
No one has the right to take this faith from us and
replace it by something else. What we are now seeing is
the revival of a Modernist definition of faith which was
condemned eighty years ago by Pius X. According to this,
faith is an internal feeling: there is no need to seek further
than man to find the explanation of religion: "It is
therefore within man himself that it is to be found; and
since religion is one form of life, it is found in the very life
of man" - something purely subjective, an adhering of the
soul to God, Who is inaccessible to our intellect. It is
everyone for himself, in his own conscience.
Modernism is not a recent invention, nor was it in
1907, the year of the famous encyclical. It is the perennial
spirit of the Revolution, and it seeks to shut us up within
our human-ness and make God an outlaw. Its false
definition of faith is directed to the destruction of the
authority of God and the authority of the Church.
Faith comes to us from outside, and we have an oblig
ation to submit to it. "He who believes will be saved, and
he who does not believe will be condemned"; Our Lord
himself affirms it.
When I went to see the Pope in 1976, to my very great
NEO-MODERNISM OR THE UNDERMINING OF THE FAITH 121
surprise he reproached me with making my seminarists
swear an oath against him. I found it hard to conceive
where that idea had come from. It had evidently been
whispered to him with the intention of harming me.
Then it dawned on me that someone had maliciously
interpreted in this way the Anti-Modernist Oath which
until recently every priest had to take before his ordin
ation, and every Church dignitary when he received his
office. His Holiness Paul VI had sworn it more than once.
Now here is what we find in this oath: "I hold most
certainly and I profess sincerely that Faith is not a blind
religious feeling which emerges from the shadows of the
subconscious under the pressure of the heart and the
inclination of the morally informed will. But it is a true
assent of the intellect to the truth received from outside,
by which we believe to be true on God's authority all that
has been said, attested and revealed by God in person,
our Creator and Lord."
This Anti-Modernist Oath is no longer required before
becoming a priest or a bishop. If it were, there would be
even fewer ordinations than there are. In effect, the
concept of faith has been falsified and many people
without any wrong intention let themselves be influenced
by modernism. 'That is why they are ready to believe that
all religions save. If each man's faith is according to hIS
conscience - if it is conscience that produces faith - then
there is no reason to believe that one faith saves any better
than another, so long as the conscience is directed
towards God. We read statements of this sort in a
document from the French Bishops' Catechetical
Commission: "Truth is not something received, ready
made, but something which develops."
The two view-points are completely different. We are
now being told that man does not receive truth but
constructs it. Yet we know, and our intelligence
corroborates this, that truth is not created - we do not
create it.
Then how can we defend ourselves against these
perverse doctrines that are ruining religion, all the more
since the "purveyors of novelties" are found in the very
bosom of the Church? Thank God, they were unmasked

at the beginning of the century in a way that allows them
to be easily recognised. And we must not think of it as an
old phenomenon of interest only to Church historians.
Pascendi is a text that could have been written today; it is
extraordinarily topical and depicts the "enemies within"
with admirable vividness.
We see them "lacking in serious philosophy and
theology and passing themselves off, all modesty
forgotten, as restorers of the Church ... contemptuous of
all authority, chafing at every restriction." "Their tactics
are never to expound their doctrines methodically and as
a whole, but in some manner to split them up and scatter
them about here and there. This makes them seem
hesitant and imprecise, when on the contrary, their ideas
are perfectly fixed and consistent. One page of their
writings could have been written by a Catholic; turn over,
and you will think you are reading something by a
Rationalist ... Reprimanded and condemned, they go their
own way, concealing a boundless effrontery under a
deceitful appearance of submission ... Should anyone be
so mistaken to criticise anyone of their novelties, however
outrageous, they will fall upon him in serried ranks: the
one who denies it is treated as an ignoramus, while who
ever accepts and defends it is praised to the skies ... A
publication appears breathing novelty at every pore:
applause and cries of admiration greet it. The more
audacious a writer is in belittling antiquity and in
undermining Tradition and the Church's magisterium,
the cleverer he is. Finally, should one of them incur the
Church's condemnation, the others will immediately rally
round him, eulogise him publicly and venerate him
almost as a martyr for the truth."
All these features correspond so closely with what we
are seeing that we could.. imagine them to have been
written just recently. In 1980, after the condemnation of
Hans Kung, a group of Christians took part in an auto
deft in front of Cologne cathedral as a form of protest
against the Holy See's decision to withdraw from the Swiss
theologian his canonical mandate. A bonfire was made,
and on it they threw an effigy and writings of Kung "in
order to symbolize the repression of courageous and
honest thought" (Le Monde). Shortly before that, the
sanctions against Pere Pohier had provoked another
public outcry. Three hundred Dominican friars and nuns
signed another text; the abbey of Boquen, the Chapel of
Montparnasse, and other avant-garde groups leapt into
the fray. The only new thing, by comparison with Pius
X's description, is that they no longer hide under the
cover of submission. They have gained confidence; they
have too much support within the Church to conceal
themselves any longer. Modernism is not dead; on the
contrary, it progresses and flaunts itself.
To continue with Pascendi: "After that, we need not
be surprised that the modernists pursue those Catholics
who fight energetically for the Church, with all their
malice and harshness. There is no limit to the insults they
will heap on them. If the adversary is one redoubtable on
account of his learning and intellect they will try to make
him powerless by organising around him a conspiracy of
silence." This is what is happening today to hounded and
persecuted traditionalist priests, and to clerical and lay
religious writers concerning whom the press, in the hands
of the progressivists, never says a word. Youth movements
too are shunned for the fact that they remain faithful,
and their edifying activities, pilgrimages and so forth
remain unknown to the public who might have been
much encouraged by them.
"If they write history, they seek out with curiosity
everything that seems to them to be a blot on the
Church's history; and they expose it to the public with ill
dissimulated pleasure under the pretence of telling the
whole truth. Dominated as they are by their
preconceptions, they destroy as far as they are able the
pious traditions of the people. Certain relics that are most
venerable on account of their antiquity they hold up to
ridicule. Lastly, they are obsessed by the vanity of
wanting to have themselves talked about, which, as they
well know, would not happen if they spoke as people have
always spoken hitherto."
As for their doctrine, it is based on the following few

points which we have no difficulty in recognising in
current thought. "Human reason is incapable of raising
itself up to God, or even of knowing, from the fact of
created beings, that He exists." As any external
revelation is impossible, man will seek within himself to
satisfy the need he feels for the divine, a need rooted in
his subconscious. This need arouses in the soul a
particular feeling "which in some way unites man with
God". This is what faith is for the modernists. God is
thereby created within the soul, and that is Revelation.
From the sphere of religious feeling we pass to that of
the intellect, which proceeds to elaborate the basic
dogmas: since man is endowed with intelligence, he has a
need to think out his faith. He creates formulas, which do
not contain absolute truth but only images or symbols of
the truth. Consequently these dogmatic formulas are
subject to change, they evolve. "Thereby the way is open
for substantial changes in dogmas. "
The formulas are not simply theological speculations,
they have to be living to be truly religious. Man's feeling
for religion, religious sentiment, needs to assimilate them
"vitally". "Living the faith" is a current phrase.
Continuing in Pius X's exposition of Modernism, we
read, "these formulas, if they are to be living formulas,
must always be suited to the believer and to his faith. The
day they cease to be so, they will authomatically lose their
original content, and then there will be nothing to do but
change them... Since dogmatic formulas, as the
modernists conceive them, are of such an unstable and
precarious nature, one understands perfectly why they
have such a slight opinion of them, even if they do not
despise them openly. Religious feeling, religious life are
the phrases always on their lips". And in their sermons,
lectures and catechisms, "ready-made formulas" are
anathema.
The believer makes his personal experience of faith,
then he communicates it verbally to others, and in that
way religious experience propagates itself. "Once the
faith has become common or, as one says, collective, the
need is felt to combine together in a society to preserve

and develop the common treasure. This is how a Church
is formed. The Church is "the fruit of the collective
conscience, in other words, of the sum of individual
consciences, which all derive from one original believer
who for Catholics is Jesus Christ".
And this is how the modernists write the history of the
Church: at the beginning, when the Church's authority
was still believed to come from God, it was conceived as
an autocratic body. "But now the mistake has been
realised. For just as the Church is a vital emanation of the
collective conscience, so Authority in its turn is a vital
product of the Church". Power, therefore, must change
hands and come from the bottom. As political
consciousness has created popular government, the same
thing must happen in the Church: "If ecclesiastical auth
ority does not wish to provoke a crisis of conscience, it
must bow to democratic forms".
You will now understand where Cardinal Suenens and
all the talkative theologians got their ideas. The post
conciliar crisis is in complete continuity with the crisis
which disturbed the end of the last century and the
beginning of this. You will also understand why, in the
catechism books that your children bring home with
them, everything begins with the first communities that
were formed after Pentecost, when the disciples, as a
consequence of the shaking-up which the meeting with
Jesus provoked in them, felt a need of the divine and lived
out a "new experience" together. Any you can now
explain the absence of dogmas - such as the Holy Trinity,
the Incarnation, the Redemption and the Assumption
in these books and also in sermons. The Texte de
reference or teacher's handbook for the catechism
prepared by the French episcopate covers also the
creating of groups which will be "mini-churches"
destined to re-create tomorrow's Church on the lines that
the modernists thought they could discern at the birth of
the Apostolic Church: "In the catechism group, teachers,
parents and children contribute their experiences of life,
their deep yearnings, religious imagery and a certain
knowledge of the things of faith. A confrontation ensues

which is a condition of truth to the extent that it stirs up
their deep aspirations and produces as genuine
commitment to the changes that any contact with the
Gospel inevitably produces. It is only after the experience
of a separation, a conversion, a sort of death, that by the
help of grace a confession of faith can be made."
So it is the bishops who put into effect, in broad day
light, the modernist tactics condemned by St. Pius X! It is
all in this paragraph" - read it again carefully: religious
feeling stirred up by a need, deep yearnings, truth that
takes shape in the sharing of experiences, the changing of
dogmas and the breach with Tradition. For the
modernists the sacraments, too, originate in a need, "for
as has been observed, in their system necessity or need is
the great all-embracing explanation". Religion needs a
tangible body: "The sacraments (for them) are simply
signs or symbols, although endowed with efficacity. They
compare them to certain words which have a vogue
because of their power of expressing and disseminating
impressive, inspiring ideas. As much as to say that the
sacraments were only instituted to nourish faith: a
proposition which the Council of Trent condemned."
One finds this idea again, to take an example, in the
writings of Besret, who was an "expert" at the Council:
"I t is not the sacrament which brings God's love into the
world. His love is atwork in every man. The sacrament is
the moment of its public manifesting in the community of
the disciples ... In saying this, I in no way intend to deny
the efficacious aspect of the sacramental signs. Man
fulfils himself by self-expression, and that is true for the
sacraments as it is for the rest of his activity". "
And the books of Holy Writ? For the modernists, they
are "the record of experiences undergone in a given
religion". God speaks through these books, but He is the
God who is within us. The books are inspired rather as
one speaks of poetic inspiration; inspiration is likened to
the urgent need felt by the believer to communicate his
lTexte de reference, para. 312.
2De commencement en commencement, p.176
faith in writing. The Bible is human work.

In Pierres Vivantes 1 the children are told that Genesis is
"a poem" written once upon a time by believers who "had
reflected". This compiliation, imposed on all catechism
children by the French episcopate, exhales modernism on
nearly every page. Let us draw up a short parallel:
St. PIUS X: "It is a law (for the modernists) that the dates
of the documents cannot be determined otherwise than
by the dates of the needs which successively made them
selves felt in the Church"
PIERRES VIVANTES: "To help these communities to
live the Gospel, some of the Apostles wrote them letters,
also called Epistles ... but above all the Apostles related by
word of mouth what Jesus had done among them and
what He had said... Later on, four writers - Mark,
Matthew, Luke and John - put into writing what the
Apostles had said". Dates of the Gospels: Mark about 70
A.D.? Luke about 80-90? Matthew about 80-90? John
about 95-100. They recounted the events of Jesus's life,
His words and especially His death and resurrection to
enlighten the faith of the believers".
ST. PIUS X: "In the sacred scriptures (they say) there are
many places where science or history enter, where obvious
errors are to be found. Yet it is not history or science that
these books are treating of, but solely religion and
morality" .
PIERRES VIVANTES: "The book (Genesis) is a poem,
not a science manual. Science tells us that it took millions
of years for life to appear." "The Gospels do not tell the
story of the life of Jesus in the same way that today events
are reported on the radio or the television or in the news
papers" .
ST. PIUS X: They do not hesitate to affirm that the
books in question, especially the Pentateuch and the first
three Gospels, were gradually formed by additions made
to a very short original narrative: interpolations in the
form of theological or allegorical interpretations, or
simply linking-passages and tackings-on. "
lSee chapter 8, above.

PIERRES VIVANTES: "What is written in most of these

books had previously been related orally from father to
son. One day someone wrote it down to transmit it in his
turn; and often what he wrote was re-written by others for
yet other people... 538, the Persian domination:
reflections and traditions become books. About 400 B.C.
Esdras collects together various books to make of them
the Law or Pentateuch. The scrolls of the Prophets are
composed. The reflections of the Sages produce various
masterpieces. "
Catholics who wonder at the new language employed
in the "Conciliar Church" will be helped by knowing that
it is not so new: that Lammenais, Fuchs and Loisy were
already using it in the last century, and that they
themselves had only picked up all the errors which had
been current for ages. But the religion of Christ has not
changed and never will: we must not let ourselves be
imposed upon.
17. What is Tradition?
Modernism is indeed what undermines the Church from

within, today as yesterday. Let us again quote from the
encyclical "Pascendi" some typical features which
correspond with what we are experiencing now. "The
Modernists say that Authority in the Church, since its end
is purely spiritual, should strip itself of all that external
pomp, all those pretentious adornments with which it
parades itself in public. In this they forget that religion,
while it belongs to the soul, is not exclusively for the soul
and that the honour paid to authority is reflected back on
Christ who institutes it."
It is under pressure from these "speakers of novelties"
that Paul VI abandoned the tiara, bishops gave up the
violet cassock and even the black, as well as their rings,
and priests appear in lay clothes, usually in a deliberately
casual style. There is nothing among the general reforms
already put into effect or insistently demanded that St.
Pius X has not mentioned as the "maniac" desires of the
modernist reformers. You will recognize them in this
passage: "As regards worship (they want) to diminish the
number of external devotions or at least stop them
increasing... Let ecclesiastical government become
democratic; let a share in the government be given to the
junior clergy and even the laity; let authority be de
centralised. Reform of the Roman Congregations, above
all the Holy Office and the Index ... Finally there are
those among them who, echoing their Protestant masters,
seek the suppression of priestly celibacy" .
Notice that the same demands are now being put
forward and that there is absolutely nothing original. As
regards Christian thought and the formation of future
priests, the intention of the reformers of St. Pius X's time
was the abandonment of scholastic philosophy which
should be relegated to "the history of philosophy among
the obsolete systems." They advocate "that young people
should be taught modern philosophy, the only true
philosophy, the only one suitable for our times ... that so
called rational theology should be based on modern

philosophy and positive theology on the history of
dogmas." In this respect, the Modernists have got what
th.ey wanted and more. In what passes for seminaries,
they teach anthropology, psychoanalysis and Marx in
place of St. Thomas Aquinas. The principles of Thomist
philosophy are rejected in favour of vague systems which
themselves recognise their inability to explain the
economy of the Universe, putting forward as they do the
philosophy of the absurd. One latter-day revolutionary, a
muddle-headed priest much heeded by intellectuals, who
put sex at the heart of everything, was bold enough to
declare at public meetings: "The scientific hypotheses of
the ancients were pure nonsense and it is on such
nonsense that St Thomas and Origen based their
systems. " Immediately afterwards, he fell into the
absurdity of defining life as "an evolutionary chain of
biologically inexplicable facts. " How can he know that, if
it is inexplicable? How, I would add, can a priest discard
the only real explanation, which is God?
The Modernists would be set at naught if they had to
defend their elaborate theories against the principles of
the Angelic Doctor, the notions of potency and act,
essence, substance and accidents, body and soul, etc. By
eliminating these notions they would render the theology
of the Church incomprehensible and, as one reads in the
Motu Proprio Doctoris Angelici, "the result is that
students of the sacred disciplines no longer even perceive
the meaning of the words by which the dogmas which
God has revealed are propounded by the Magisterium".
The offensive against scholastic philosophy is a necessary
preliminary when one wants to change dogma and attack
Tradition.
But what is Tradition? It seems to me that the word is
often imperfectly understood. It is equated to the
"traditions" that exist in trades, in families and in civic
life: the "bouquet" fixed to the roof of a house when the
last tile is laid, the ribbon that is cut to open a
monument, etc. That is not what I am referring to:
Tradition does not consist of the customs inherited from
WHAT IS TRADITION? 131
the past and preserved out of loyalty to the past even
where there are no clear reasons for them. Tradition is
defined as the Deposit of Faith transmitted by the
Magisterium down through the centuries. This deposit is
what has been given to us by Revelation; that is to say, the
Word of God entrusted to the Apostles and transmitted
unfailingly by their successors.
But now they want to get everyone inquiring,
searching, as if we had not been given the Creed, or as if
Our Lord had not come to bring us the Truth once and
for all. What do they claim to discover with all this
enquiry? Catholics upon whom they would impose these
"questionings", after having made them "abandon their
certainties", should remember this: the deposit of
Revelation concluded at the death of the last Apostle. It
is finished and it cannot be touched until the end of time.
Revelation is irreformable. The First Vatican Council re
stated this explicitly: "for the doctrine of faith which God
has revealed has not been proposed, like a philosophical
invention, to be perfected by human ingenuity; but has
been delivered as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ
(the Church) to be faithfully kept and infallibly
declared. "
But, one will object, the dogma that makes Mary the
Mother of God only dates back to the year 431, transub
stantiation to 1215, papal infallibility to 1870 and so on.
Has there not been an evolution? No, not at all. The
dogmas which have been defined in the course of the ages
were contained in Revelation; the Church has just made
them explicit. When Pope Pius XII defined in 1950 the
dogma of the Assumption, he said specifically that this
truth of the assumption into Heaven of the Virgin Mary,
body and soul, was included in the deposit of Revelation
and already existed in the texts revealed to us before the
death of the last Apostle. We cannot bring anything new
into this field, we cannot add a single dogma, but only
express those that exist ever more clearly, more
beautifully and more loftily.
That is so certain that it forms the rule to follow in
judging the errors that are put before us every day, and
rejecting them with no concession. As Bossuet forcefully

wrote: "When it is a matter of explaining the principles
of Christian morality and the essential dogmas of the
Church everything that does not appear in the Tradition
of all time, and especially the early times, is from then on
not only suspect but wrong and to be condemned; and
this is the principal basis on which all the holy Fathers of
the Church, and Popes more than anyone, condemned
false doctrines, there being nothing more odious to the
Roman Church than novelties. "
The argument that is pressed upon the terrorised
faithful is this: "You are clinging to the past, you are
being nostalgic; live in your own time!" Some are abashed
and do not know what to reply. Nevertheless, the answer
is easy: In this there is no past or present or future. Truth
belongs to all times, it is eternal.
In order to break down Tradition they confront it with
Holy Scripture, after the manner of the Protestants, with
the assertion the the Gospel is the only book that counts.
But Tradition came before the Gospel! Although the
Synoptic Gospels were not written nearly as late as some
would have us believe, a number of years had passed
before the Four Evangelists had completed their writing;
but the Church already existed, Pentecost had taken
place and brought numerous conversions, 3000 on the
very day the Apostles came out of the Upper Room. What
did they believe just at that moment? How was Revelation
transmitted if not by oral tradition? One cannot sub
ordinate Tradition to Holy Scripture, still less reject it.
But do not imagine that, adopting this attitude, they
have an unlimited respect for the inspired text. They even
dispute that it is inspired in its entirety: "What is there in
the Gospel which is inspired? Only the truths that are
necessary for our salvation". In consequence, the
miracles, the accounts of the Holy Childhood, the actions
and conduct of Our Lord are relegated to the category of
more or less legendary biography. We fought in the
Council over that phrase: "Only the truths necessary for
salvation". There were some bishops in favour of
reducing the historical authenticity of the Gospels, which
WHAT IS TRADITION? 133
shows the extent to which the clergy is corrupted by neo

Modernism. Catholics should not allow themselves to be
imposed upon: the whole of the Gospel is inspired and
those who wrote it had the Holy Spirit guiding their
intelligence, so that the whole of it is the Word of God,
Verbum Dei. It is not permissible to pick and choose and
to say today: "We will take this part but we don't want
that part." To choose is to be a heretic, according to the
Greek derivation of that word.
It remains no less a fact that it is Tradition that
transmits the Gospel to us, and it appertains to
Tradition, to the Magisterium, to explain to us the
contents of the Gospel. If we have nobody to interpret it
for us, we can reach several completely different under
standings of the same words of Christ. We then end up
with the free interpretation of the Protestants and the
free inspiration of the present day charismatics which
leads us into pure fantasy.
All the Dogmatic Councils have given us the exact
expression of Tradition, the exact expression of what the
Apostles taught. Tradition is irreformable. One can
never change the decrees of the Council of Trent, because
they are unfallible, written and published by an official
act of the Church, unlike those of Vatican II, which
pronouncements are not infallible because the popes did
not wish to commit their infallibility. Therefore nobody
can say to you, "You are clinging to the past, you have
stayed with the Council of Trent". For the Council of
Trent is not the past! Tradition is clothed with a timeless
character, adapted to all times and all places.
18. True and False Obedience
Indiscipline is everywhere in the Church. Committees of

priests send demands to their bishops, bishops disregard
pontifical exhortations, even the recommendations and
decisions of the Council are not respected and yet one
never hears uttered the word "disobedience", except as
applied to Catholics who wish to remain faithful to
Tradition and just simply keep the Faith.
Obedience is a serious matter; to remain united to the
Church's Magisterium and particularly to the Supreme
Pontiff is one of the conditions of salvation. We are
deeply aware of this and nobody is more attached to the
present reigning successor of Peter, or has been more
attached to his predecessors, than we are. I am speaking
here of myself and of the many faithful driven out of the
churches, and also of the priests who are obliged to
celebrate Mass in barns as in the French Revolution, and
to organise alternative catechism classes in town and
country.
We are attached to the Pope for as long as he echoes
the apostolic traditions and the teachings of all his
predecessors. It is the very definition of the successor of
Peter that he is the keeper of this deposit. Pius IX teaches
us in Pastor Aeternus: "The Holy Spirit has not in fact
been promised to the successors of Peter to permit them
to proclaim new doctrine according to His revelations,
but to keep strictly and to expound faithfully, with His
help, the revelations transmitted by the Apostles, in other
words the Deposit of Faith" .
The authority delegated by Our Lord to the Pope, the
Bishops and the priesthood in general is for the service of
faith. To make use of law, institutions and authority to
annihilate the Catholic Faith and no longer to transmit
life, is to practise spiritual abortion or contraception.
This is why we are submissive and ready to accept
everything that is in conformity with our Catholic Faith,
as it has been taught for two thousand years, but we reject
everything that is opposed to it.
TRUE AND FALSE OBEDIENCE 135
For the fact is that a grave problem confronted the
conscience and the faith of all Catholics during the
Pontificate of Paul VI. How could a Pope, true successor
of Peter, assured of the assistance of the Holy Spirit,
preside over the most vast and extensive destruction of the
Church in her history within so short a space of time,
something that no heresiarch has ever succeeded in
doing? One day this question will have to be answered.
In the first half of the Fifth Century, St. Vincent of
Lerins, who was a soldier before consecrating himself to
God and acknowledged having been "tossed for a long
time on the sea of the world before finding shelter in the
harbour of faith", spoke thus about the development of
dogma: "Will there be no religious advances in Christ's
Church? Yes, certainly, there will be some very important
ones, of such a sort as to constitute progress in the faith
and not change. What matters is that in the course of
ages knowledge, understanding and wisdom grow in
abundance and in depth, in each and every individual as
in the churches; provided always that there is identity of
dogma and continuity of thought". Vincent, who had
experienced the shock of heresies, gives a rule of conduct
which still holds good after fifteen hundred years: "What
should the Catholic Christian therefore do if some part of
the Church arrives at the point of detaching itself from
the universal communion and the universal faith? What
else can he do but prefer the general body which is
healthy to the gangrenous and corrupted limb? And if
some new contagion strives to poison, not just a small part
of the Church but the whole Church at once, then again
his great concern will be to attach himself to Antiquity
which obviously cannot any more be seduced by any
deceptive novelty. "
In the Rogation-tide litanies the Church teaches us to
say: "We beseech thee 0 Lord, maintain in thy holy
religion the Sovereign Pontiff and all the orders of
ecclesiastical hierarchy." This means that such a disaster
could very will happen.
In the Church there is no law or jurisdiction which can
impose on a Christian a diminution of his faith. All the
faithful can and should resist whatever interferes with

their faith, supported by the catechism of their child
hood. If they are faced with an order putting their faith
in danger of corruption, there is an overriding duty to
disobey.
It is because we judge that our faith is endangered by
the post-conciliar reforms and tendencies, that we have
the duty to disobey and keep the Tradition. Let us add
this, that the greatest service we can render to the Church
and to the successor of Peter is to reject the reformed and
liberal Church. Jesus Christ, Son of God made man, is
neither liberal nor reformable. On two occasions I have
heard emissaries of the Holy See say to me: "The social
Kingdom of Our Lord is no longer possible in our times
and we must ultimately accept the plurality of religions. "
This is exactly what they have said to me.
Well, I am not of that religion. I do not accept that
new religion. It is a liberal, modernist religion which has
its worship, its priests, its faith, its catechism, its
ecumenical Bible translated jointly by Catholics, Jews,
Protestants and Anglicans, all things to all men, pleasing
everybody by frequently sacrificing the interpretation of
the Magisterium. We do not accept this ecumencal Bible.
There is the Bible of God; it is His Word which we have
not the right to mix with the words of men.
When I was a child the Church everywhere had the
same faith, the same sacraments and the same Sacrifice
of the Mass. If anyone had told me then that it would be
changed, I would not have believed him. Throughout the
breadth of Christendom we prayed to God in the same
way. The new liberal and modernist religion has sown
division.
Christians are divided within the same family because
of this confusion which has established itself; they no
longer go to the same Mass and they no longer read the
same books. Priests no longer know what to do; either
they obey blindly what their superiors impose on them,
and lose to some degree the faith of their childhood and
youth, renouncing the promises they made when they
took the Anti-Modernist Oath at the moment of their
ordination; or on the other hand they resist, but with the
feeling of separating themselves from the Pope, who is
our father and the Vicar of Christ. In both cases, what a
heartbreak! Many priests have died of sorrow before their
time.
How many more have been forced to abandon the
parishes where for years they had practised their ministry,
victims of open persecution by their hierarchy in spite of
the support of the faithful whose pastor was being torn
away! I have before me the moving farewell of one of
them to the people of the two parishes of which he was
priest: "In our interview on the ..... the Bishop addressed
an ultimatum to me, to accept or reject the new religion;
I could not evade the issue. Therefore, to remain faithful
to the obligation of my priesthood, to remain faithful to
the Eternal Church ... I was forced and coerced against
my will to retire ... Simple honesty and above all my
honour as a priest impose on me an obligation to be loyal,
precisely in this matter of divine gravity (the Mass) ... This
is the proof of faithfulness and love that I must give to
God and men and to you in particular, and it is on this
that I shall be judged on the last day along with all those
to whom was entrusted the same deposit (of faith)."
In the Diocese of Campos in Brazil, practically all the
clergy have been driven out of the churches after the
departure of Bishop Castro-Mayer, because they were not
willing to abandon the Mass of all time which they
celebrated there until recently.
Division affects the smallest manifestations of piety. In
Val-de-Marne, the diocese got the police to eject twenty
five Catholics who used to recite the Rosary in a church
which had been deprived of a priest for a long period of
years. In the diocese of Metz, the bishops brought in the
Communist mayor to cancel the loan of a building to a
group of traditionalists. In Canada six of the faithful
were sentenced by a Court, which is permitted by the law
of that country to deal with this kind of matter, for
insisting on receiving Holy Communion on their knees.
The Bishop of Antigonish had accused them of
"deliberately disturbing the order and the dignity of
religious service." The judge gave the "disturbers" a

conditional discharge for six months! According to the
Bishop, Christians are forbidden to bend the knee before
God! Last year, the pilgrimage of young people to
Chartres ended with a Mass in the Cathedral gardens
because the Mass of St. Pius V was banned from the
Cathedral itself. A fortnight later, the doors were thrown
open for a spiritual concert in the course of which dances
were performed by a former Carmelite nun.
Two religions confront each other; we are in a
dramatic situation and it is impossible to avoid a choice,
but the choice is not between obedience and
disobedience. What is suggested to us, what we are
exressly invited to do, what we are persecuted for not
doing, is to choose an appearance of obedience. But even
the Holy Father cannot ask us to abandon our faith.
We therefore choose to keep it and we cannot be
mistaken in clinging to what the Church has taught for
two thousand years. The crisis is profound, cleverly
organised and directed, and by this token one can truly
believe that the master mind is not a man but Satan
himself. For it is a master-stroke of Satan to get Catholics
to disobey the whole of Tradition in the name of
obedience. A typical example is furnished by the
"aggiornamento" of the religious societies. By obedience,
monks and nuns are made to disobey the laws and
constitutions of their founders, which they swore to
observe when they made their profession. Obedience in
this case should have been a categorical refusal. Even
legitimate authority cannot command a reprehensible
and evil act. Nobody can oblige anyone to change his
monastic vows into simple promises, just as nobody can
make us become Protestants or modernists. St. Thomas
Aquinas, to whom we must always refer, goes so far in the
"Summa Theologica" as to ask whether the "fraternal
correction" prescribed by Our Lord can be exercised
towards our superiors. After having made all the
appropriate distinctions he replies: "One can exercise
fraternal correction towards superiors when it is a matter
of faith."
If we were more resolute on this subject, we would
avoid coming to the point of gradually absorbing
heresies. At the beginning of the Sixteenth Century the
English underwent an experience of the kind we are living
through, but with the difference that it began with a
schism. In all other respects the similarities are
astonishing and should give us cause to ponder. The new
religion which was to take the name "Anglicanism"
started with an attack on the Mass, personal confession
and priestly celibacy. Henry VIII, although he had taken
the enormous responsibility of separating his people from
Rome, rejected the suggestions that were put to him, but
a year after his death a statute authorised the use of
English for the celebration of the Mass. Processions were
forbidden and a new order of service was imposed, the
"Communion Service" in which there was no longer an
Offertory. To reassure Christians another statute forbade
all sorts of changes, whereas a third allowed priests to get
rid of the statues of the saints and of the Blessed Virgin in
the churches. Venerable works of art were sold to traders,
just as today they go to antique dealers and flea-markets.
Only a few bishops pointed out that the Communion
Service infringed the dogma of the Real Presence by
saying that Our Lord gives us His body and blood
spritually. The Confiteor, translated into the vernacular,
was recited at the same time by the celebrant and the
faithful and served as an absolution. The Mass was trans
formed into a meal or Communion. But even clear
headed bishops eventually accepted the new Prayer Book
in order to maintain peace and unity. It is for exactly the
same reasons that the post-Conciliar Church wants to
impose on us the Novus Ordo. The English bishops in the
Sixteenth Century affirmed that the Mass was a
"memorial"! A sustained propaganda introduced
Lutheran views into the minds of the faithful. Preachers
had to be approved by the Government.
During the same period the Pope was only referred to
as the "Bishop of Rome" . He was no longer the father but
the brother of the other bishops and in this instance, the
brother of the King of England who had made himself
head of the national church. Cranmer's Prayer Book was

composed by mixing parts of the Greek liturgy with parts
of Luther's liturgy. How can we not be reminded of Mgr.
Bugnini drawing up the so-called Mass of Paul VI with
the collaboration of six Protestant "observers" attached
as experts to the Concilium for the reform of the liturgy?
The Prayer Book begins with these words, "The Supper
and Holy Communion, commonly called Mass ... ", which
foreshadows the notorious Article 7 of the Institutio
Generalis of the New Missal, revived by the Lourdes
Eucharistic Congress in 1981: "The Supper of the Lord,
otherwise call the Mass ... ". The destruction of the
sacred, to which I have already referred, also formed part
of the Anglican reform. The words of the Canon were
required to be spoken in a loud voice, as happens in the
"Eucharists" of the present day.
The Prayer Book was also approved by the bishops "to
preserve the internal unity of the Kingdom." Priests who
continued to say the "Old Mass" incurred penalties
ranging from loss of income to removal pure and simple,
with life imprisonment for further offences. We have to
be grateful that these days they do not put tradionalist
priests in prison.
Tudor England, led by its pastors, slid into heresy with
out realising it, by accepting change under the pretext of
adapting to the historical circumstances of the time.
Today the whole of Christendom is in danger of taking
the same road. Have you thought that even if we who are
of a certain age run a smaller risk, children and younger
seminarists brought up in new catechisms, experimental
psychology and sociology, without a trace of dogmatic or
moral theology, canon law or Church history, are
educated in a faith which is not the true one and take for
granted the new-Protestant notions with which they are
indoctrinated? What will tomorrow's religion be if we do
not resist?
You will be tempted to say: "But what can we do about
it? It is a bishop who says this or that. Look, this
document comes from the Catechetical Commission or
some other official commission."
That way there is nothing left for you but to lose your
faith. But you do not have the right to react in that way.
St. Paul has warned us: "Even if an angel from Heaven
came to tell you anything other than what I have taught
you, do not listen to him. "
Such is the secret of true obedience.
19. The Ec6ne Seminary and Rome
You are perhaps, perpexed readers, among those who

observe the course of events with sadness and anguish but
are nevertheless afraid to attend a true Mass, in spite of
the desire to do so, because they have been persuaded
that this Mass is forbidden. You may be one of those who
no longer follow the priests in anoraks but who view with
some distrust the priests in cassocks as if they were under
some kind of censure; is not the bishop who ordained
them suspended a divinis? You are afraid of putting
yourself out of the Church; this fear is of praiseworthy
origin but it is uninformed. I want to tell you what the
position is about these sanctions which have been given
such prominence and caused such loud rejoicing among
the Freemasons and the Marxists. To understand it
properly a little history is needed.
When I was sent to Gabon as a missionary, my bishop
immediately appointed me as Professor at the Seminary
of Libreville, where for six years I formed seminaries, of
whom some later received the grace of the episcopate.
When I became a bishop in my turn, at Dakar, it seemed
to me that my principal concern should be to look for
vocations, to form the young men who responded to the
call of God and to lead them to the priesthood. I had the
joy of conferring the priesthood on one destined to be my
successor at Dakar, Mgr. Thiadoum, and on Mgr.
Dionne, the present Archbishop of Thies in Senegal.
Returning the Europe to take up the position of
Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, I tried to
maintain the essential values of priestly formation. I have
to admit that already by then, at the beginning of the
Sixties, the pressure was such and the difficulties so con
siderable that I could not achieve the results I wanted. I
could not keep the French Seminary in Rome, which was
placed under the authority of our Congregation, on the
same right lines as when we were there ourselves between
1920 and 1930. I resigned in 1968 in order not to endorse
the reform undertaken by the General Chapter in a
THE ECONE SEMINARY AND ROME 143
direction contrary to Catholic tradition. Already before
that date I was getting numerous calls from families and
from priests asking me where to send young men desiring
to enter the priesthood. I admit that I was very hesitant.
Freed from my responsibilities, and at a time when I was
thinking of retirement, my mind turned to the University
of Fribourg in Switzerland, still orientated toward
Thomist doctrine. The Bishop, Mgr. Charriere, received
me with open arms. I rented a house and we received nine
seminaries who followed the University course and the
rest of the time led the life of a real seminary. They very
soon showed the desire to work together in the future
and, after thinking it over, I went to ask Mgr. Charriere if
he would agree to sign a decree for the foundation of a
"Fraternity". He approved its statutes and thus was born
on the 1st November 1970 the "Priestly Fraternity of St.
Pius X". We were canonically instituted in the Diocese of
Fribourg.
These details are important as you will see. A bishop
has the right, canonically, to establish in his diocese
associations which Rome recognises lPSO facto. It follows
from this that if a succeeding bishop wishes to suppress an
association or fraternity, he cannot do so without
recourse to Rome. The authority of Rome protects what
the first bishop has created so that associations are not
subjected to an insecurity harmful to their development.
This is how it is willed by the Law of the Church."
The Priestly Society of St. Pius X is consequently
recognised by Rome in a perfectly legal manner,
although this is by diocesan and not by pontifical decree,
the latter not being absolutely necessary. There exist
hundreds of religious congregations founded on diocesan
decrees which have houses throughout the world.
When the Church recognises a foundation or diocesan
association, she accepts that it will train its own members;
if it is a religious congregation she accepts that there will
be a noviciate or house of formation. For us this means
our seminaries. On the 18th February 1971, Cardinal
lCanon 493
Wright, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the

Clergy, sent me a letter of encouragement in which he
expressed confidence that the Fraternity "would be well
able to fit in with the objective sought by the Council in
this holy Dicastery with a view to supplying clergy for the
world". However, in November 1972 at the Plenary
Assembly of the French bishops at Lourdes, it was called
a "rebel seminary" without protest from any bishops
present, although they must certainly have known the
juridical situation of the Econe seminary.
Why did they consider us rebels? Because we did not
give the key of the house to seminarians to go out in the
evenings when they felt like it, because we did not let
them watch television from 8.00 p.m. to 11.00 p.m.,
because they did not wear polo-necks and went to Mass
every morning instead of staying in bed until the first
lecture.
On the other hand Cardinal Garrone', whom I met at
that time, said to me: "You are not directly answerable to
rna and I have only one thing to say to you; follow the
ratio fundamentalis that I have laid down for the found
ation of seminaries, which all seminaries must follow"
The ratio fundamentalis provides that Latin should still
be taught in a seminary and that the studies should be
pursued according to the doctrine of St. Thomas. I
allowed myself to reply: "Your Eminence, I believe we are
one of the few who do follow it." This is even more true
today and the ration fundamentalis is still in force. So
what are they reproaching us with?
When it became necessary to open a real seminary and
I had rented the house at Econe, a former rest house of
the Great St. Bernard monks, I went to see Mgr. Adam,
Bishop of Sion, who gave me his consent. This establish
ment was not the result of a long thought-out plan that I
had made, it thrust itself upon me providentially. I had
said: "If the work expands world-wide, that will be the
sign that God is with it. " From year to year the number of
seminarians increased; in 1970 there were 11 entrants
1 Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education.

and in 1974, 40. The innovators became increasingly
worried. It was obvious that if we were training
seminarians it was to ordain them, and that the future
priests would be faithful to the Mass of the Church, the
Mass of Tradition, the Mass of all time. There is no need
to look any further for reasons for the attacks on us; one
would not find any others. Econe appeared as a danger
for the neo-Modernist church and it was important to
guard against it before it was too late.
So it was that on the 11 th November 1974 there arrived
at the seminary with the first snows two Apostolic Visitors
sent by a commission appointed by Paul VI and con
sisting of three Cardinals, Garrone, Wright and Tabera,
this last being Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for
Religious. They (the Apostolic Visitors) questioned 10
professors and 20 of the 104 students present, as well as
myself, and departed two days later leaving a dis
agreeable impression behind them. They had made some
scandalous remarks to the seminarians, considering the
ordination of married men to be normal, declaring that
they did not acknowledge an immutable Truth and
expressing doubts about the traditional conception of
Our Lord's Resurrection. Of the seminary they said
nothing and they left no formal statement. After which,
angry at the remarks they had made, I published a
declaration which began with these phrases:
"We adhere with all our heart and all our soul to
Catholic Rome, guardian of the Catholic Faith and the
traditions necessary to maintain it, and to Eternal Rome,
mistress of wisdom and truth.
"On the other hand we refuse and have always refused
to allow the Rome of the neo-Modernist and new
Protestant trend which was clearly evident in the Second
Vatican Council and, after the Council, in all the reforms
which flowed from it. "
The words were no doubt rather sharp but they
expressed and still express my thinking. It was on account
of this text that the Commission of Cardinals decided to
bring about our downfall, because they could not do so
on account of the way the seminary was run. The
Cardinals were to tell me two months later that the

Apostolic Visitors had gained a good impression from
their enquiry.
On the following 13th February I was invited (by the
Commission) to a "discussion" in Rome to clarify certain
points and I went there without suspecting that it was a
trap. The discussion turned itself from the start into a
close cross-examination of a judicial type. I t was followed
by a second on the 3rd March and two months later the
Commission informed me, "with the complete approval
of His Holiness", of the decisions it had taken: Mgr.
Mamie, the new Bishop of Fribourg, was accorded the
right to withdraw the approval given to the Fraternity by
his predecessor. Thereby the Fraternity and also the
foundations, notably the Seminary of Econe, lost the
"right to exist" .
Without waiting for notification of these decisions,
Mgr. Mamie wrote to me: "I hereby inform you that I
withdraw the acts and concessions effected by my
predecessor with regard to the Priestly Fraternity of St.
Pius X, in particular the decree of foundation dated the
1st November 1970. This decision takes effect
immediately" .
If you have followed me closely, you will be able to see
that this suppression was made by the Bishop of Fribourg
and not by the Holy See. By virtue of Canon 493, it is
therefore completely void in law for lack of competence.
Added to that there is a lack of sufficient cause. The
decision can only be based on my declaration on the 21st
November 1974, judged by the Commission to be
"unacceptable on all points", because on the Commission
own admission the results of the Apostolic Visitation were
favourable. Yet my declaration has never been the
subject of a condemnation by the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith (the former Holy Office) which
alone is competent to judge whether it is opposed to the
Catholic Faith. It has only been deemed "unacceptable
on all points" by three cardinals in the course of what
remains officially a discussion.
The juridicial existence of the Commission itself has
never been proved. By what pontifical act was it

instituted? On what date? What form did it take? Who
was notified of it? The fact that the Roman authorities
refuse to produce any such act permits us to doubt its
existence. If there is doubt about its validity a law is not
binding, says the Code of Canon Law. Even less so when
there is doubt about the competence of even the existence
of the authority. the words "with the complete approval
of His Holiness" are not legally sufficient; they cannot
take the place of the decree which should have
constituted the Commission of Cardinals and defined its
powers.
There are procedural irregularities which render the
suppression of the Fraternity a nullity. Nor must we
forget that the Church is not a totalitarian society of the
Nazi or Marxist type, and that the law even when it is
properly observed - which was not the case in this instance
- is not an absolute. It has to be related to faith, truth and
life. Canon Law is designed to make us live spiritually
and thus to lead us to Eternal Life. If this law is used to
prevent us from attaining it, or as it were to abort our
spiritual life, we are obliged to disobey exactly in the
same way that citizens are obliged to disobey the abortion
laws of the State.
To return to the juridcial aspect, I entered two suc
cessive appeals before the Apostolic Signature, which is
more of less the equivalent of a court of appeal in civil
law. the Cardinal Secretary of State, Mgr. Villot, forbade
this supreme tribunal of the Church to entertain them,
which amounts to an interference by the executive in the
judiciary.
20. The Mass of All Time
One fact cannot have failed to surprise you: at no time

during this affair has the Mass been in issue, although it is
at the heart of the conflict. This enforced silence is the
tacit admission that what is called the Rite of St. Pius V
remains fully authorised.
On this subject Catholics can be perfectly easy in their
minds: this Mass is not forbidden and cannot be
forbidden. St. Pius V who, let us repeat, did not invent it
but "re-established the Missal in conformity with the
ancient rule and the rites of the Holy Fathers," gives us
every guarantee in the Bull Quo Primum, signed by him
on the 14th July 1570: "We have decided and declare that
the Superiors, Canons, Chaplains and other priests by
whatever title they are known, or Religious of whatsover
Order, may not be obliged to celebrate Mass otherwise
than as enjoyed by Us. We likewise order and declare that
no-one whosoever shall ever at any time be forced or
coerced into altering this Missal; and this present
Constitution can never by revoked or modified, but shall
for ever remain valid and have the force of law ... Should
anyone venture to (make such an alteration), let him
understand that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God
and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul".
Supposing that the Pope could withdraw this perpetual
indult, he would have to do it by an equally solemn act.
The Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum of the 3rd
April 1969 authorises the so-called Mass of Paul VI, but
contains no expressly formulated prohibition of the
Tridentine Mass. I So much so that Cardinal Ottaviani
could say in 1971: "The Tridentine Rite has not been
abolished as far as I know." Bishop Adam, who claimed
at the Plenary Assembly of the Swiss Bishops that the
Constitution Missale Romanum had forbidden the
celebration of the Rite of St. Pius V except by indult, had
to retract when he was asked to say in what terms this
ITridentine: referring to the Council of Trent.

THE MASS OF ALL TIME 149
prohibition had been declared.

It follows from this that if a priest was censured or even
excommunicated on this ground, the sentence would be
absolutely invalid. St. Pius V has canonised this Holy
Mass, and a Pope cannot remove such a canonisation any
more than he can revoke that of a saint. We can celebrate
it and the faithful can attend it with complete peace of
mind, knowing furthermore that it is the best way of
maintaining their faith.
This is so much the case that His Holiness John Paul II,
after several years of silence on the subject of the Mass,
has finally loosened the fetter imposed on Catholics. The
letter of the Congregation for Divine Worship, dated the
3rd October 1984, "authorises" anew the Rite of St. Pius
V for the faithful who request it. It imposes, admittedly,
conditions we cannot accept, and in any case we did not
need this indult to enjoy a right which has been granted
to us until the end of time.
However, this initial gesture - let us pray that there will
be others - lifts the suspicion unjustly cast on the Mass
and liberates the consciences of those confused Catholics
who still hesitate to attend it.
Let us now come to the suspension a divinis laid on me
on the 22nd July 1976. It followed the ordinations of the
29th June at Econe; for three months we had been
receiving from Rome reproofs, supplications, orders and
threats to persuade us to cease our activity and not to
proceed to the priestly ordinations. Over the last few days
beforehand there was no end to the messages and
deputations, and what were they saying? Six times they
asked me to re-establish normal relations with the Holy
See by accepting the new rite and celebrating it myself.
They went to the length of sending a Monsignor who
offered to concelebrate with me and they put a new
missal in my hand with the promise that, if I said the
Mass of Paul VI on the 29thJune in front of all the people
who had come to pray for the new priests, everything
would thenceforth be smoothed out between Rome and
myself.
This means that they were not prohibiting me from
performing these ordinations, but they wanted it done

according to the new liturgy. It was clear from that
moment that the whole drama between Rome and Econe
was being played around the problem of the Mass, as it
still is today.
I said, in the sermon of the Ordination Mass:
"Tomorrow perhaps our condemnation will appear in the
newspapers; it is very possible as a result of today's
ordinations. I will probably have a suspension laid on me
and these young priests will be stamped with an
irregularity which ought theoretically to prevent them
from saying Holy Mass. It is possible. Well, I appeal to St.
Pius V".
Certain Catholics may have been troubled by my
disregard of this suspension a ditnnis, But what must be
fully understood is that it all forms a chain of events. Why
was I forbidden to perform these ordinations? Because
the Fraternity was suppressed and the seminary was
supposed to have been closed. But I had not accepted the
suppression and the closure, precisely because they had
been illegally decided and the measures taken were
tainted with various canonical defects, both of form and
substance (notably what writers on administrative law
call "misapplication of powers", that is to say the employ
ment of powers against the purpose for which they should
be used. To accept the suspension I would have to
accept everything from the beginning; but I did not
because we had been condemned without trial, without
the opportunity to defend ourselves, without due warning
or written process and without appeal.
Once one rejects the first judgment there is no reason
not to reject the others, because the others depend on it.
The nullity of one entails the nullity of those which
follow.
Another question is sometimes put to the faithful and
to priests: can you be in the right against everybody else?
At a press conference, the representative of "Le Monde"
said to me: "But after all, you are on your own. On your
own against the Pope and all the bishops. What sense is
there in your struggle?" Well, no, I am not alone. I have
THE MASS OF ALL TIME 151
the whole of Tradition with me and the Church exists in
time and space. Besides, I know that many bishops think
like us in their hearts. Today, since the open letter to the
Pope which Bishop Castro Mayer signed with me, there
are two of us who have declared ourselves openly against
the protestantisation of the Church. We have many
priests with us. Then there are our seminarists which now
provide around 40 new priests each year, our 250
seminarians, our 30 brothers, our 60 nuns, our 30
oblates, the monasteries and Carmels which are opening
and developing, and the crowds of the faithful who are
coming to us.
Besides, the Truth does not depend on numbers and
numbers do not make the Truth. Even if I were alone and
all my seminarians left me, even if the whole of public
opinion were to abandon me, that would be a matter of
indifference as far as I am concerned. I am bound to my
Creed, to my catechism, to the Tradition which has
sanctified the Elect in Heaven and I want to save my soul.
We know public opinion all too well. It condemned Our
Lord a few days after having acclaimed Him. It is Palm
Sunday followed by Good Friday. His Holiness Paul VI
asked me: "But after all, don't you feel in your heart
something that reproaches you for what you are doing?
You are causing in the Church an enormous scandal,
enormous. Doesn't your conscience tell you so?"
I replied: "No, Holy Father, not at all". If I had
something to reproach myself with, I would stop at once.
Pope John Paul II has neither confirmed nor quashed
the sanction pronounced against me. During the
audience which he granted me in November 1979, he
seemed after a long conversation quite disposed to allow
freedom of choice in the liturgy, in short to let me do
what I asked from the beginning, to carryon the "Exper
iment of Tradition" among all the other experiments that
are carried on in the Church. The moment had come
when perhaps everything could have been settled; no
more outlawing of the Mass and no more problems. But
Cardinal Seper, who was present, saw the danger.
"But, Holy Father," he exclaimed, "they make this
Mass into a banner!"

The heavy curtain which had lifted for a moment fell
back. We must still wait.
21. Neither a Heretic nor a Schismatic
My statement of 21 November 1974, which triggered off

the proceedings of which I have spoken, ended with these
words: "In doing so ... we are convinced of remaining
loyal to the Catholic and Roman Church and to all the
successors of Peter, and of being faithful dispensers of the
Mysteries of Our Lord Jesus Christ". When publishing
the text, the Osservatore Romano omitted this
paragraph. For ten years and more our opponents have
been set on casting us out of the Church's communion by
presenting us as not accepting the Pope's authority. It
would be very convenient to turn us into a sect and
declare us schismatics. How many times the word schism
has been applied to us!
I have not ceased repeating that if anyone separates
himself from the Pope, it will not be me. The question
comes down to this: the power of the Pope within the
Church is supreme, but not absolute and limitless,
because it is subordinate to the Divine authority which is
expressed in Tradition, Holy Scripture, and the
definitions already promulgated by the Church's magis
terium. In fact, the limits of papal power are set by the
ends for which it was given to Christ's Vicar on earth,
ends which Pius IX clearly defined in the Constitution
Pastor aeternus of the First Vatican Council. So in saying
this I am not expressing a personal theory.
Blind obedience is not Catholic; nobody is exempt
from responsibility for having obeyed man rather than
God if he accepts orders from a higher authority, even the
Pope, when these are contrary to the Will of God as it is
known with certainty from Tradition. It is true that one
cannot envisage such an eventuality when the Papal
infallibility is engaged; but this happens only in a limited
number of cases. It is an error to think that every word
uttered by the Pope is infallible.
Nevertheless, I am not among those who insist or
insinuate that Paul VI was a heretic and therefore, by
that very fact, no longer Pope. John Paul I and John Paul
II would then not have been legitimately elected. This is

the position of those called "sede-vacantists".
It has to be admitted that Paul VI has posed a serious
problem for the consiences of the faithful. This pontiff
has done more harm to the Church than the French
Revolution. There are definite acts of his, such as his
signature to Article 7 of the Institutio Generalis of the
new Mass, and likewise to the Council's document on
Religious Liberty, that are scandalous. But it is not a
simple problem to know whether a Pope can be a heretic.
A good many theologians think he can be as a private
teacher but not as a teacher of the universal Church. We
have to consider the degree to which the Pope intended to
involve his infallibility in cases such as those I have
quoted.
Now, we have already been able to perceive that he
behaved more like a liberal than as one attached to
heresy. In fact, as soon as the danger he risked was
brought to his attention, he rendered the text
contradictory by adding a formula meaning the contrary
of what was already in the draft. A well-known example is
the explanatory foreword to the Council's Constitution
Lumen Gentium on collegiality.
Paul VI's liberalism, recognised by his friend Cardinal
Danielou , is sufficient to explain the disasters of his ponti
ficate. The liberal Catholic is two-sided; he is in a state of
continual contradiction. He would like to remain a
Catholic but he is possessed by a desire to please the
world. Can a Pope be a liberal and still remain a Pope?
The Church has always severely reprimanded liberal
Catholics, but has not always excommunicated them.
Another argument put forward by the sede-vacantists is
that the exclusion of Cardinals of eighty years and over,
and the secret meetings which preceeded and organised
the last two conclaves render the election of those two
Popes invalid. To assert that they were invalid is going
too far; doubtful, perhaps. Nevertheless, the subsequent
unanimous acceptance of the elections by the Cardinals
and the Roman clergy suffices to validate them. That is
the opinion of theologians.
NEITHER A HERETIC NOR A SCHISMATIC 155
The reasoning of those who deny that we have a Pope
puts the Church in an inextricable situation. The
visibility of the Church is too necessary for its existence
for it to be possible that God would allow it to disappear
for decades. Who would be able to tell us where the
future Pope is? How can he be elected if there are no
more Cardinals? We detect a schismatic spirit behind
those reasonings, and our Society utterly refuses to follow
them. While rejecting Paul VI's liberalism, we wish to
remain attached to Rome and the Successor of St. Peter
out of fidelity to his predecessors.
It is obvious that in matters such as religious liberty,
eucharistic hospitality as authorised by the new Canon
Law, and collegiality considered as the affirmation of two
supreme powers within the Church, it is the duty of every
priest and every faithful Catholic to refuse obedience.
This resistence must be made public if the evil is public
and constitutes a cause of scandal for souls. This is the
reason why, taking our line from St. Thomas Aquinas,
Bishop de Castro Meyer and I on 21st November 1983
sent an open letter to Pope John Paul II begging him to
denounce the principal causes of the dire situation which
is dividing the Church. All the steps we had taken in
private during the last fifteen years had proved unavail
ing; yet to remain silent would have seemed to make us
accomplices in the unsettling of the faithful that is a fact
throughout the world.
"Most Holy Father", we wrote, "it is an urgent matter
that this unrest be quietened, because the flock have
scattered and the abandoned sheep are following
hirelings. We urge you, for the well-being of the Catholic
faith and the salvation of souls, to re-affirm the truths
contrary to these errors." Our cry of alarm was rendered
even more urgent by the errors in the new Cod of Canon
Law, not to say its heresies, and by the ceremonies and
speeches marking the fifth centenary of the birth of
Martin Luther.
We have had no reply, but we have done what we
ought to do. We must not despair as though it were a
human undertaking. The present convulsion will pass
away just as all heresies have passed away. One day a

return will have to be made to Tradition: in the Papal
authority the powers signified by the Tiara must again re
appear; a tribunal for the protection of the truths of faith
and morals must be restored permanently, and bishops
must regain their powers and their personal initiative.
True apostolic work will have to be freed of all the
impediments that now are paralyzing it by obscurring the
essentials of the message. Seminaries must be brought
back to their true function, religious orders revived,
Catholic schools and universtities restored by freeing
them of secular State curricula. Support must be given to
employers' and workers' organizations determined to
collaborate in a fraternal manner, respecting the duties
and rights of all, and renouncing that social scourge the
strike, which is nothing better than a cold war within the
nation. It will be necessary, too, to promote civil
legislation that is in harmony with the laws of the
Church, and to encourage the putting forward of
Catholics for public office, who are actuated by the will
to guide society towards the official recognition of the
social rule of Christ the King.
For, after all, what do we say each day when we pray?
"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in
heaven". And in the "Gloria" of the Mass? "Thou alone
art the Lord, Jesus Christ". We sing that, but as soon as
we get outside we say, "Oh no, these ideas are out of date:
impossible to think of talking about the Kingdom of
Christ in the world of today." We are living a contra
diction. Are we Christians or not?
Nations are struggling with insoluble difficulties.
There is endless war in many areas, and all mankind
trembles in contemplating the possibility of a nuclear
catastrophe. Solutions are sought that will restore the
economy, stabilize money, eliminate unemployment, and
make industry prosperous. Well, even from the economic
point of view, it is necessary that Christ should reign,
because that means the reign of love and of the com
mandments of God, which ensure a balance in society
and bring justice and peace. Is it a Christian attitude to
set one's hopes on this or that politician, or combination
of parties, in the hope that eventually one programme or
another will definitely and finally solve our problems,
when the one and only Lord is deliberately excluded as if
He had nothing to do with human affairs? What sort of a
faith have people who live their lives in two compart
ments with a rigid barrier separating their religion from
all their political, professional and other preoccupations?
Is not God, who created heaven and earth, able to solve
our wretched material and social problems? If you have
ever prayed yourself in difficult moments of your life, you
will know by experience that He does not give stones when
His children ask Him for bread.
The Christian social order is at the opposite pole to the
Marxist ideas which, in whatever part of the world they
have been applied, have never brought anything but
misery, oppression of the weakest, contempt for man,
and death. Christian social order respects private
property, protects the family against corrupting
influences, and encourages large families and the
presence of the mother in the home. It allows private
enterprise a proper independance, and encourages
medium and small businesses. It is in favour of a return to
the land and appreciates agriculture at its true value. It
supports professional associations, freedom of education,
and the protection of the citizens against every form of
subversion and revolution.
This Christian order is quite different also from those
liberal systems based on the separation of Church and
State, whose powerlessness to overcome crises becomes
increasingly obvious. How could it be otherwise when
they have deliberately cut themselves off from Him who is
"the light of men"? How could they muster the energies
of their citizens when they have no ideal to put to them
beyond prosperity and comfort? They have been able to
maintain an illusion for some time because the people
have retained Christian habits of thinking and their
rulers have more or less consciously kept some values. But
at a time when everything is being questioned, these
implicit references to the Will of God fade away. Liberal
systems, when they are left to themselves and are no

longer motivated by any higher idea, become exhausted
and fall an easy prey to subversive ideologies.
To speak, then, of the Christian social order is not to
cling to an out-moded past. On the contrary, it is a stand
point for the future which you should not hesitate to
adopt. You are not fighting a rear-guard action; you are
among those who know what's what because they take
their lessons from Him who said, "I am the Way, the
Truth and the Life". We have the advantage of
possessing the truth. It is not our doing, we must not be
conceited about it; but we must act accordingly. The
possession of the truth is the. advantage the Church has
over error. It is up to her, helped by the grace of God, to
spread it, and not timidly hide it under a bushel.
Still less should it be mingled with falsity, though this is
what we are constantly witnessing. I read in the
Osservatore Romano (18.1.84) an interesting article by
Paolo Befani about the favour shown to socialism by the
Vatican. The author compares the situation in South
America and that in Poland, and he writes:
"Leaving aside the situation in Europe, the Church
finds herself confronted on the one hand by the situation
in the Latin American countries and the influence over
them of the U. S. A., and on the other hand by the
situation of Poland in the orbit of the Soviet empire.
Faced with these two frontiers the Church, which in
Vatican II accepted and surpassed the liberal-democratic
conquests of the French Revolution, and in her forward
march proposes herself as the post-revolution to the
Russian Marxist revolution, now offers a solution to the
failure of Marxism of which the key idea is a post
Marxist, democratic, Christian-based, self-governing and
non-totalitarian socialism.
"The Church's answer to the East is represented by
Solidarity, raising the Cross in front of the Lenin ship
yards. Latin America's mistake is to seek the solution in
Marxist communism, that is, in a socialism with anti
Christian roots."
There we have a fine example of liberal illusions,
associating contradictory words in the conviction of
expressing the truth! It is to these adulterous dreamers
obsessed with the idea of marrying the Church to the
Revolution that we owe the present chaos in the Christian
world which is opening the doors to Communism. Saint
Pius X said of the Sillonists, "they hanker for socialism,
their eyes fixed on a chimera". Their successors are
continuing to do so. After Christian Democracy comes
Christian Socialism. We shall end up with Christian
Atheism!
The solution that we seek must bring the answer not
only to the failure of Marxism but also to the failure of
Christian Democracy, which no longer needs proof.
There has been more than enough of compromise and of
unnatural unions. What is it we are fishing for in these
muddy waters? The Catholic holds the real key-idea; and
his duty is to work with all his might, either personally in
politics or by his vote, to provide his country with repres
entatives, both at the local and at the national level, who
are resolved to re-establish a Christian social order, such
as is alone capable of bringing peace, justice and true
liberty. There is no other solution.
22. What Families Can Do
It is high time to react. When Gaudium et Spes speaks of

the movement of history "becoming so rapid that every
body finds it hard to follow" , we can take this as meaning
the headlong rush of liberal society into disaggregation
and chaos. We must take care not to follow!
One cannot understand how the leaders can claim to
be of the Christian religion whilst destroying all authority
within the State. On the contrary, it is important to re
establish this authority which is prescribed by Providence
in the two natural societies of divine right, the family and
civil society, whose influence here below is fundamental.
In recent times it is the family that thas suffered the
hardest blows. The changeover to Socialism in countries
like France and Spain has only speeded up the process.
The ensuing legal measures demonstrate a great co
hesion in their determination to ruin the institution of the
family: the reducing of parental authority, easy divorce,
the disappearance of responsibility in the procreative act,
the legal recognition of irregular unions and even of
homosexual couples, juvenile cohabitation, trial
marriage, the reduction of financial and social assistance
to large families, etc ... The State itself in its own interests
is beginning to see the effects of this in the declining birth
rate, and wonders how in the near future the rising gener
ations will be able to maintain the pensions of those who
are no longer economically active. But the effects are
considerably more serious in the spiritual field.
Catholics must not follow, but as citizens they must
bring all their weight to bear to put right what is needed.
This is why they may not remain aloof from politics.
However, their endeavours will be most effective in the
upbringing they give their children.
On the subject, authority is contested at its very source
by those who declare, "Parents are not the owners of their
children", by which they mean that their education
reverts to the State with its schools, its day nurseries and
its kingergarten schools. They reproach parents with
WHAT FAMILIES CAN DO 161
failing to respect the "freedom of conscience" of their
children when they bring them up in accordance with
their own religious convictions.
These ideas can be traced back to the seventeenth
century English philosophers who maintained that men
are separate individuals, independent from birth, all
equal and free from all authority. We know that to be
false. The child receives everything from his father and
his mother, all nourishment - bodily, intellectual,
educational, moral and social. Parents are aided in this
by teachers who in the children's minds share their
authority, but whether it be from either or both of them,
almost all the learning they obtain during their youth will
be received and accepted, rather than gathered by
observation and personal experience. A considerable part
of knowledge comes from the authority who passes it on.
The pupil has confidence in his parents, in his teachers
and in his books and thereby his knowledge grows.
This is even more true of religious knowledge, of
religious practice, of moral training in conformity with
the faith, with tradition, and customs. Men generally live
by following family traditions, as can be observed
throughout the whole world. Conversion to another
religion from that received during childhood presents
serious difficulties.
This extraordinary influence of the family and
background was intended by God. He willed that His
blessings should first of all be passed on by the family.
This is the reason why He gives to the father of a family
such great authority and power over his family, his wife
and his children. A child is born in such extreme
weakness that we can appreciate the absolute need for the
stability and indissolubility of the home.
To want to exalt a child's personality and consciousness
to the detriment of parental authority is ruinous for him,
driving him to revolt and to despise his parents, whereas
long life is promised to those who honour their parents.
Saint Paul, in reminding us of this, makes it a duty for
fathers not to exasperate their sons, but to bring them up
in the discipline and fear of the Lord.
If we had to wait to receive an understanding of

religious truth before believing and conversion, there
would be very few Christians today. We believe the truths
of religion because its witnesses are worthy of belief by
their holiness, their unselfishness and their charity. As
Saint Augustine says, faith gives understanding.
The role of parents has become very difficult. As we
have seen, the majority of Catholic schools have in effect
become secular. The true religion is no longer taught in
them, nor yet the natural sciences in the light of the faith.
The catechisms spread Modernism. The hectic style of
modern living leaves no spare time and professional
obligations separate parents and children from the
grandfathers and grandmothers who before used to help
with their upbringing. Catholics are now not only
confused but also defenceless.
Not to such an extent, however, that they cannot
provide the essentials, the grace of God making up what
lacks. What must be done? Truly Catholic schools do
exist, though few in number. Send your children to them
even if it is a financial burden. Open new schools, as
others have already done. If you are only able to use
schools where the teaching has been distorted, then you
must complain and demonstrate against it; do not allow
the teachers to cause your children to lose their faith.
Read and re-read as a family the Catechism of Trent,
the finest, the soundest and the most complete. Organize
"parallel catechism classes" under the spiritual direction
of good priests, do not be afraid of being called, like us,
"rebel". Moreover, there are already numerous groups
operating who would welcome your children.
Throw out the books that carry Modernist poison. Seek
advice. There are courageous publishers printing
excellent works and re-printing those destroyed by the
Modernists. Do not buy just any Bible; every Catholic
family ought to have a faithful translation of the Vulgate,
the Latin version made by Saint Jerome in the fourth
century and canonised by the Church.
Hold on to the true interpretation of the Scriptures,
keep to the true Mass and the Sacraments such as were
WHAT FAMILIES CAN DO 163
formerly administered everywhere. At the present time
the devil is assailing the Church: that is the fact of the
matter. We are witnessing perhaps one of his last battles,
an all-out battle. He is attacking on all fronts; and if Our
Lady of Fatima said that one day he would penetrate to
the highest positions of the Church, we must believe that
could happen. Personally, I am alleging nothing, yet
there are signs which could make us think that in the
highest administrative bodies in Rome there are men who
have lost their faith.
Urgent spiritual remedies must be applied. We must
pray and do penance, as the Blessed Virgin has
requested, and say the Rosary together in the family. As
we have seen during each war, people begin to pray
together when the bombs begin to fall. In exactly the
same way, they are falling at this moment; we are on the
brink of losing faith. Do you realise that that would
surpass in seriousness every catastrophy feared by man,
such as world economic crisis or atomic warfare?
Renewal is absolutely necessary; but you must not
assume that you cannot count on the young for that. The
whole of youth is not corrupted, as some try to convince
us. Many of them hold an ideal; for many others it would
be enough to offer them one. There are boundless
examples of movements that have successfully appealed
to their generosity; those monasteries faithful to
Tradition are drawing them, and there is no lack of
vocations from young seminarists or novices wanting to be
accepted. There is a magnificent undertaking to be
accomplished in conformity with the instructions given by
the Apostles, "Tenete traditiones ... Permanete in iis
quae didicistis".
The old world called upon to disappear is the world of
abortion. Families who are faithful to Tradition are also
large families and their very faith ensures their posterity.
"Increase and multiply!" By keeping to what the Church
has always taught you will ensure the future.
23. Building Up versus Pulling Down
Twenty years have gone by and one would have thought

that the reactions raised by the Council reforms would
have calmed down, that the Catholic people would have
buried the religion in which they had been brought up,
that the younger ones, not having known it, would have
accepted the new one. That, at least, was the wager made
by the Modernists. They were not unduly disturbed by
the uproar, sure of themselves as they were in the early
days. They were less so later on. The frequent and
necessary concessions made to the spirit of the world did
not produce the expected results. Nobody any longer
wanted to be a priest of the new religion and the faithful
turned away from their religious practice. The Church
which tried to become a Church of the poor became a
poor Church, obliged to resort to advertising to collect
Peter's Pence, and to sell off its properties.
During this time those faithful to Tradition drew
together in all the Christian lands, and particularly in
France, Switzerland, the United States and Latin
America.
The fabricator of the new Mass, Mgr. Annibale
Bugnini was himself obliged to recognize this world-tide
resistance in his posthumous book', a resistance which is
growing and organizing itself unceasingly and drawing
support. No, the "traditionalist" movement is not
"slowing-down" as the progressist journalists write from
time to time to reassure themselves. Where else are there
as many people at Mass as at St. Nicholas-du
Chardonnet, and also as many Masses, as many
Benedictions of the Blessed Sacrament or as many
beautiful ceremonies? The Society of Saint Pius X
throughout the world owns seventy houses, each with at
least one priest, churches like the one in Brussels and the
one we have quite recently bought in London, or the one
placed at our disposal in Marseilles; also schools, and four
1 La Riforma Lit urgica: Edizioni Liturgiche, Rome.

BUILDING UP VERSUS PULLING DOWN 165
serrunaries.
Carmelite convents are opening and already forming
new communities. Religious communities of men and of
women created fifteen or more years ago, who strictly
apply the rule of the orders from which they stem, are
overflowing with vocations, and are continuously having
to enlarge their premises and construct more buildings.
The generosity of the Catholic faithful never ceases to
amaze me, particularly in France.
The monasteries are centres of attraction, crowds of
people go there often from far away; young people
bewildered by the illusory seductions of pleasure and
escape in every form, find in them their Road to
Damascus. Here is a list of places where they have kept
the true Catholic faith and for that reason draw people:
Le Barroux, Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, La Haye-aux
Bonshommes, the Benedictines of Ales, the Sisters of
Fanjeaux, of Brignolles, of Pontcallac, and communities
like that of Father Lecareux ...
Travelling a great deal, I see everywhere at work the
hand of Christ blessing His Church. In Mexico the
ordinary people drove from the churches the reforming
clergy who, won over by the so-called liberation theology,
wanted to throw out the statues of the saints. "It's not the
statues who are going, it's you". Political circumstances
have prevented us from opening a priory in Mexico; so
faithful priests travel out from a centre at 1 Paso near
the frontier in the United States. The descendants of the
Cristeros welcome them warmly and offer them their
churches. I have administered 2500 confirmations there
at the request of the people.
In the United States, young married couples with their
numerous children flock to the Society's priests. In 1982
in that country I ordained the first three priests trained
entirely in our seminaries. Groups of traditionalists are on
the increase whereas the parishes are declining. Ireland,
which had remained refractory towards the novelties, has
been subject to the reforms since 1980, altars having been
cast into rivers or re-used as building material.
Simultaneously, traditionalist groups have formed in
Dublin and Belfast. In Brazil, in the diocese of Campos of

which I have already spoken, the people have rallied
around the priests evicted from their parishes by the new
bishop, wi th processions of 5,000 and 10,000 people
taking to the streets.
It is therefore the right road we are following; the proof
is there, we recognize the tree by its fruits. What the
clergy and the laity have achieved in spite of persecution
by the liberal clergy (for, as Louis Veuillot says, "There is
nobody more sectarian than a liberal") is almost
miraculous.
Do not let yourself be taken in, dear readers, by the
term "traditionalist" which they would have people
understand in a bad sense. In a way, it is a pleonasm
because I cannot see who can be a Catholic without being
a traditionalist. I think I have amply demonstrated in this
book that the Church is a tradition. We are a tradition.
They also speak of "integrism". If by that we mean
respect for the integrality of dogma, of the catechism, of
Christian morality, of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, then
yes, we are integrists. And I do not see how one can be a
Catholic without being an integrist in that sense of the
word.
It has also been said that after me, my work will
disappear because there will be no bishop to replace me. I
am certain of the contrary; I have no worries on that
account. I may die tomorrow, but the good Lord answers
all problems. Enough bishops will be found in the world
to ordain our seminarians: this I know.
Even if at the moment He is keeping quiet, one or
another of these bishops will receive from the Holy Ghost
the courage needed to arise in his turn. If my work is of
God, He will guard it and use it for the good of the
Church. Our Lord has promised us, the gates of Hell
shall not prevail against her.
This is why I persist, and if you wish to know the real
reason for my persistance, it is this. At the hour of my
death, when Our Lord asks me: "What have you done
with your episcopate, what have you done with your
episcopal and priestly grace?", I do not want to hear from
BUILDING UP VERSUS PULLING DOWN 167
His lips the terrible words "You have helped to destroy

the Church along with the rest of them."

An Open Letter To Confused Catholics

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What is the book about?

What is the book about?

What is Archbishop Lefebvre's background?

What is Archbishop Lefebvre's background?

AN OPEN LETTER

Translated by Father M. Crowdy

Fowler Wright Books Ltd

The Society of St. Pius X.

First Published in France Editions Albin Michel

English translation 1986 The Society of St. Puis X

Fowler Wright Books Ltd.

Typeset and Printed in England by

Leominster Print, Leominster, Herefordshire

ISBN 0 85244 047 2

Copyright ':S 1986 The Society of St. Pius X

1 Why are Catholics Confused? 9

2 "They are Changing Our Religion" 14

3 What They are Doing to the Mass 23

4 The Mass of All Times versus the Mass of

6 The New Forms of Baptism, Marriage,

Penance and Extreme Unction 45

7 The New Priests 57

8 The New Catechisms 64

9 The New Theology 73

12 Comrades and Fellow- Travellers 89

13 Religious Liberty, Collegial Equality,

14 "Vatican II is the French Revolution in the

15 The Marriage of the Church and the

16 Neo-modernism or the Undermining of the

17 What is Tradition? 129

18 True and False Obedience 134

19 The Ec6ne Seminary and Rome 142

20 The Mass of All Time 148

21 Neither a Heretic nor a Schismatic 153

22 What Families Can Do 160

23 Building Up versus Pulling Down 164

While presenting in English Archbishop Lefebvre's

Though responsibility for the translation is mine, it has

Revd. Michael C. Crowdy

Who can deny that Catholics in the latter part of the

in the behaviour of Catholics, which shows up as a sharp

false doctrine of salvation and a false doctrine of the

often portable and disappear when not in use. The

an initial period of surprise and uncertainty. In the

Firstly, I must dispell a misunderstanding so as not to

canst neither deceive nor be deceived"?

"spontaneous", we must speak to God out of the

thinking of what one is doing. What we are seeing here is

century church decorated with magnificent stained-glass

France are permanently closed, others only opened a few

of leading personalities in the world of music wrote: "In

leader, the congregation raise their hands above their

during Mass. When, then, will they pray?

I have before me some photos published in Catholic

but on the contrary to recommend them. "La Vie" even

fear to bring down divine punishment upon themselves

an immense pride which makes us treat God as if we were

In preparation for the 1981 Eucharist Congress a quest

towards the congregation. One does not preside at a meal