The 1989 preface to Abbe Daniel Le Roux’s Peter, Lovest Thou Me? is astounding to read in 2025 because one could apply essentially the same message to the state of the Catholic Church and world today:
“A reading of ‘Peter, Lovest Thou Me?’ is enough to fill a faithful Catholic with despair, were it not that we have Our Lord’s promise that He will never desert His Church. He will truly be with us all days, but what trials we must endure, only He in His mercy knows. We can watch the world becoming more and more evil by the day, and we can watch the Princes of the Church doing nothing in its defense. More clearly can we see the warnings given by Our Blessed Lady at La Salette, at Lourdes, at Fatima. At La Salette she told us that ‘Rome will lose the truth and become the seat of the Antichrist.’ Our Lady gave to Sr. Lucia a third part to her message at Fatima, which was to be published in 1960. The world still waits, but it almost certainly spoke of a general apostasy. Is that not what we are witnessing today?”
All faithful Catholics today should welcome the reminder of Our Lord’s promise to remain with His Church; but for many Catholics the timing of this preface likely presents some difficulty. Specifically, how could the author have seen “general apostasy” in 1989, during the pontificate of John Paul II? If matters were truly that bad in 1989, how can we imagine that the current crisis in the Church relates primarily to Francis?
These are the same problems that we face with Francis today. Archbishop Lefebvre and others saw them decades ago, long before the 1988 episcopal consecrations. But Rome persecuted those who spoke out against the Vatican II revolution.
To evaluate these questions raised by the preface to Peter, Lovest Thou Me?, we can consider a few of the book’s quotations from John Paul II, as well as Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s postface for the book.
Words of John Paul II
Peter, Lovest Thou Me? is not the most comprehensive compendium of heterodox quotations from John Paul II, but Archbishop Lefebvre and other Traditional Catholics still believed that it presented a conclusive argument that the profound crisis in the Church had reached the papacy. Almost certainly, many exemplary Catholics who denounce Francis’s errors today will find little, if any, reason to find fault with the statements from John Paul II that follow. And yet, all of the pre-Vatican II popes would have denounced these statements:
“The churches and separated communities, although we once believed that they suffered from deficiencies, are not totally deprived of importance and value in the mystery of salvation. The Spirit of Christ does not refuse to use them as means of salvation, through the strength deriving from the fullness of grace and truth which has been conferred on the Catholic Church.” (p. 42)
“Nostalgia for the unity of Christians makes common cause with that of unity of the whole human race. The new concept of a ‘People of God’ has made us revise the old truth about the possibility of redemption outside the limits of the Catholic Church. This gives rise to the attitude of the Church towards the other religions, which is based on the recognition of their spiritual values, humans and Christians together, reaching out to such religions as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism . . .” (p. 45)
“In celebrating the Redemption we go beyond the historic misunderstandings and contingent controversies to find once more what is common to all Christians, that is to say, like the redeemed.” (p. 111)
“Christians and Moslems, we meet one another in faith in the one God, our creator, our guide, our just and merciful judge. We strive to put into practice in our daily lives the will of God, following the teaching of our respective holy books.” (p. 140)
“Christians and Moslems, we have many things in common as believers and as men . . . We believe in the same God, the only God, the living God. Respect and dialogue require mutual reciprocity in all areas, especially concerning fundamental liberties and more particularly religious liberty. Each man expects to be respected for what he is and what he believes.” (p. 141)
“Jerusalem must become the city of man, in which the believers of the three great monotheistic religions — Christianity, Judaism and Islam — live in full liberty and equality, as do the believers of other religious communities, in the recognized guarantee that this city is the sacred patrimony of all, and is destined for adoration of the One God, of mediation and the work of fraternity.” (p. 200)
Peter, Lovest Thou Me? also includes multiple John Paul II quotations about collegiality and Freemasonry, but these statements related to false ecumenism, universal salvation, and religious liberty suffice to justify the condemnations found both of the book’s preface and Archbishop Lefebvre’s postface, which follows.
Because Archbishop Lefebvre believed the pre-Vatican II popes, he recognized the errors flowing from Vatican II and understood that they threatened the Church with complete ruin.
Archbishop Lefebvre’s Evaluation
Archbishop Lefebvre began the postface (dated June 7, 1988) with words that may seem extreme for those who know little about what the Church taught prior to Vatican II:
“To read these lines presenting the true face of John Paul II is a terrifying experience for the faithful Catholic, it fills the soul with sadness and dread.”
John Paul II’s words caused terror and dread because they raised the problems Archbishop Lefebvre proceeded to describe:
“Also, it raises serious problems of faith for any true Catholic; problems that often have no solution, although they explain the perplexity and confusion which are now troubling even those whose faith is strongest. The Pope is Peter, the rock on which Christ founded His Church. He is the one whose faith must not fail; who is to confirm his brethren; feed his sheep; feed the lambs. It is he who, assisted by the Holy Ghost has, for almost twenty centuries in this manner given the Papacy a moral credibility unique in the history of the world. Is it conceivable that, since the 1960s, the Apostolic See has been occupied by Popes who have been the cause of the ‘auto-demolition of the Church,’ and are spreading within it ‘the smoke of Satan’? Leaving aside the pertinent question of what these Popes are, we are certainly obliged to ask ourselves questions about what they do, and we can observe with alarm and amazement that they are introducing the Revolution of ’89 into the Church, complete with its motto, its charter, which is fundamentally opposed to the principles of the Catholic Faith.”
These are the same problems that we face with Francis today. Archbishop Lefebvre and others saw them decades ago, long before the 1988 episcopal consecrations. But Rome persecuted those who spoke out against the Vatican II revolution (whereas Rome had no problem permitting actual abuses that were spreading like wild fire). Despite this unjust persecution, Archbishop Lefebvre would not bend because he saw the facts and understood their implications:
“This book is very enlightening on the activities of John Paul II, a true follower of Paul VI. We have the facts before our eyes which, enlightened by the immutable Catholic Faith, are now, with increasing sorrow and grief, seeing the Church threatened with complete ruin.”
Others saw the facts as well but were pressured into imagining that the immutable Catholic Faith could radically change to accommodate the new orientation. So instead of seeing reality as Archbishop Lefebvre did, they adopted the perspective of the revolutionaries. In so doing, they cut the ties with the pre-Vatican II popes who had warned about what would happen if Catholics made peace with error:
“Echoing the Popes before the 1960s, who foretold the disasters that would come upon the Church if their warnings were not listened to and their condemnations not heeded, and echoing the prophesies of Our Lady of La Salette and Fatima, let us strive to re-establish the Church upon the eternal principles taught by the Magisterium for nearly twenty centuries, rejecting the errors of the Liberal Modernist Revolution, even when these errors may be endorsed by those who occupy the See of Peter.”
Because Archbishop Lefebvre believed the pre-Vatican II popes, he recognized the errors flowing from Vatican II and understood that they threatened the Church with complete ruin. However, he also knew that the Blessed Virgin Mary had warned that these calamities would afflict the Church and that we would need to remain faithful to the immutable Catholic Faith, especially when Satan’s minions occupying Rome would try to convince us otherwise.
So much blasphemy, sacrilege, apostasy, and scandal flowing from Rome had become accepted as normal, even among conservative Catholics. It was as though the majority of the Catholic world had grown complacent seeing the Mystical Body of Christ undergo a Passion and Crucifixion.
Accordingly, Archbishop Lefebvre remained faithful to “eternal Rome” as he distanced himself from “Modernist Rome”:
“The Declaration we made on November 21, 1974 after the first visit to Rome is still relevant, and we were obliged to reaffirm it after our second visit in 1987. We must reject Modernist Rome as it pursues its course of destroying the Faith and Christianity. It is our daily duty to repudiate it by attaching ourselves to the eternal Rome, proclaiming more than ever the need for the Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Mother, Mary Our Queen. To bring about the coming of this Reign, we need Bishops, we need priests and religious who have but one name on their lips, and one love in their hearts: that of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”
This remains the solution today, but far too many otherwise faithful Catholics cannot bring themselves to break free from the errors promoted by Francis’s predecessors. So instead of attaching themselves to the “eternal Rome” represented by what the Church unambiguously taught prior to Vatican II, they try to hold to the religion that has been compromised by the errors of Vatican II.
But this comprised set of religious beliefs rooted in false ecumenism is gravely offensive to God and leads souls to Hell. For decades before almost any of us had heard of Jorge Bergoglio, Rome had been promoting the “auto-demolition of the Church” as Paul VI called it. So much blasphemy, sacrilege, apostasy, and scandal flowing from Rome had become accepted as normal, even among conservative Catholics. It was as though the majority of the Catholic world had grown complacent seeing the Mystical Body of Christ undergo a Passion and Crucifixion.
How would our loving God wake us up from this? We can at least ponder the possibility that God has permitted the cartoonishly demonic antics of Francis so that faithful Catholics will finally open their eyes and realize that the entire Vatican II revolution has been a grave offense against God which must be rejected. Of course Francis is far more offensive than his predecessors in various ways — but his evils are simply the ripened and more plentiful fruits of the revolutionary tree that produced the fruits offered by all of the post-conciliar occupants of the papacy.
God wants us to judge (and reject) the entire revolutionary tree rather than merely the fruits from Francis that we find so grotesque. To do so we must learn to see what Archbishop Lefebvre saw in 1988, which is the same as what he saw in 1974, as we know from his famous declaration. And those who have, for various reasons, misled souls into following the Vatican II revolution must find the fortitude to renounce their errors and admit that Archbishop Lefebvre saw matters clearly.
If enough Catholics were to wake up and evaluate the current crisis with the immutable Faith that Archbishop Lefebvre defended, then we might find that God will provide us the means to resolve the crisis in the papacy. As the situation stands now, though, far too many who wail that Francis is not the pope would rejoice if we were to have another Paul VI or John Paul II take his place. Maybe Francis is not the pope . . . but it seems that we would better petition God’s mercy if more Catholics would reject the revolutionary tree that can only yield other unholy fruits like Francis. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
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