Rome, Italy—15 May 2012: Your Excellencies: As a Catholic layman I humbly write to you at this most critical moment in the history of our Church which may well appear in retrospect to have presented one of the greatest challenges to the work of the great Archbishop Lefebvre.  The spiritual wellbeing of my family lies in the hands of the priests of your Society, and so I approach you as a son might approach his father—with devotion and urgent supplication.

Up until now I have not written publicly about the ongoing negotiations between the Society of St. Pius X and the Vatican.  I believe it to be prudent to follow the principle of saying very little concerning matters about which one knows even less.  Although your Excellencies have made known in general terms the essence of the two-year doctrinal discussions and the practical proposals of the Holy See over the past eight months, the details nevertheless remain undisclosed.  What has been made public in recent days, alas, is a serious division among yourselves concerning the Society’s official response to the proposals presented by the Roman authorities since September 2011.  I therefore write these words to implore each of you to use all of your natural and supernatural gifts to prevent any personal disagreements from turning into a public split within the Society of St. Pius X. 

The Society and her faithful adherents have suffered much unjust persecution and internal betrayal over the past four decades. Yet, throughout it all she has always borne good fruit and remained first and foremost in the vineyard of souls.  When God brought me to circumstances that demanded a firm and public decision on my part about the relationship between the Society and the Vatican—notwithstanding all the legal, theological and philosophical arguments—it was precisely the test given by Our Lord Himself which mattered in the end:  By their fruits you shall know them.  For over forty years the fruits have been good.  For my family the fruits have been overabundant. 

The unity of the Society founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was entrusted not only to a governing body similar to that of other religious societies, but, after 1988, also to the four of you as bishops of the Church.  To allow that unity to be ruptured at this critical juncture in history would do unimaginable damage to the confidence of the faithful and to the human element of Holy Mother Church in general, suffering as she now is from unprecedented and scandalous disunity in her ranks throughout the world. 

Reading between the lines, it does appear that the strategy of the enemies of the Society (including The Enemy) has been to chisel away at her fraternal unity through split after split, beginning with the Fraternity of St. Peter and then moving on to the priests of Campos, the Redemptorists, the Institute of the Good Shepherd, et cetera.  Yet, the loss of these small numbers of priests, although painful, would be nothing compared to a split among yourselves.  A fratricidal civil war within the Society will do incalculable damage to souls and play into the hands of those who seek the Society’s total annihilation.

It may well be  that the leaked personal correspondence among you was merely the exchange of frank opinions on the decision at hand,  much as what happened at the meeting the Archbishop himself called before the episcopal consecrations in 1988.   But an unfortunate result of those letters becoming public is that some laity and even some Society priests have begun to use them to proclaim a general necessity for all to “take sides.” 

For the good of the Society and the faithful attached to her, therefore, I implore you to meet one another bishop-to-bishop, face-to-face, and to use all of your strength to find a way to stand together.  If it is found that your differences involve prudential choices of contingent actions, I would beg you to find Catholic principles from which to reach a consensus.  Obviously, I can provide no assistance in that regard, other than to offer my fervent prayers, as I do not know the details of the decision you must face.  But a mere public announcement that you will, in fact, meet together as brother bishops—while imploring your faithful and priests to pray and to cease further agitation in the interim—will, without doubt, have a great calming effect on the faithful who look to you for guidance and who cling to you for hope and perseverance during these days of great apostasy.

I beg pardon for the boldness of addressing you thus, but I would ask you to accept my words as the cri de coeur of a child to his parent that they surely are.  The faithful will follow in the way of Truth; but if even the traditionalist shepherds are struck, the ensuing confusion will confuse the sheep, I fear, leaving them even more defenseless in the face of the wolves.

On bended knee, I beg you to make peace among yourselves.  The good of the Society, of souls and of the Church herself would seem to demand nothing less.  May God be with you and Mary guide your decision.

In Christo per Mariam,

Professor Brian M. McCall