Almost fifty years after he wrote these words, one of the more striking aspects of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s famous 1974 Declaration is that he later said he had drafted it "in a spirit of doubtlessly excessive indignation.” He had been indignant that two Visitors appointed by a Commission of Cardinals to conduct an Apostolic Visitation of his seminary at Ecône scandalized his seminarians with their heretical views. Michael Davies described the basis for the scandal in his Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre:
“[T]hese two Visitors considered it normal and indeed inevitable that there should be a married clergy; they did not believe there was an immutable Truth; and they also had doubts concerning the traditional concept of Our Lord's Resurrection.”
In hindsight, it seems that the archbishop had every reason for the indignation he expressed so eloquently in the 1974 Declaration.
What about those who are “obedient” to the destroyers? They rapidly drift further away from what the Church has always taught, so that no right-thinking person can recognize them as Catholic.
Dr. David Allen White described the fallout from the 1974 Declaration in his The Horn of the Unicorn: A Mosaic of the Life of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre:
“The Declaration was penned to quiet the apprehensions of the seminarians and assure them of the intended direction of the seminary. It was not meant to be an attack on Rome, nor was it intended as a public pronouncement . . . Ironically, the report of the canonical visitors had been positive and thus of no use to the enemies of Ecône (in fact, their report never received any further mention in Rome); the Declaration, however, provided the perfect weapon for attack. Archbishop Lefebvre had handed his opponents a hammer and they would seize it and strike.” (p. 182)
With this weapon in hand, Archbishop Lefebvre’s enemies, including Paul VI, proceeded down a canonically irregular and dishonest path of persecuting the archbishop, which eventually led to him being “suspended a divinis” on July 22, 1976:
“The Congregation of Bishops issued a censure: Archbishop Lefebvre was ‘suspens a divinis’ (i.e. forbidden to administer the Sacraments). However, 1) the act, signed by the secretary, was canonically invalid; 2) the Archbishop made an appeal ‘in forma surpensiva’ which meant that the act was suspended until a juridical decision was issued. This has never come.”
One year later, his Ordination Sermon at Ecône reflected the appropriate indignation of a man who fully recognized that he was dealing with forces that were attempting to destroy the Church he loved, and send countless souls to hell:
“I want to be and to stay Catholic. So why am I required to suppress our seminary? Why am I required to suppress our Sacerdotal Fraternity of Saint Pius X? Why am I required not to perform these ordinations? There is only one reason: to bring me into line with this policy. They want me to lend a hand in this destruction of the Church, to join in this communion which, for the Church is adultery. I will not be an adulterer. I will keep my Catholic Faith! That is why I refuse. I refuse to collaborate in the destruction of the Church. I refuse to collaborate in loss of faith, in the general apostasy.”
This 1977 ordination sermon is worth reading in its entirety, but for our purposes in Lent 2023, it is Archbishop Lefebvre’s sermon a few months later at Poitiers that warrants our immediate attention. In that sermon on the occasion of the first Mass of a new priest, he gave us the holy wisdom we need so much today as many Catholics have questions about obedience to the unholy tyranny coming from Rome:
Fidelity to Christ and Tradition is the Mark of True Obedience. “[O]ne cannot say that one obeys authority today while disobeying the entire Tradition. Following Tradition is precisely the sign of our obedience. Jesus Christus heri, hodie et in saecula, ‘Jesus Christ yesterday, today and forever.’”
Those Who Accuse Us Are Truly Disobedient. “I think that those who accuse us have perhaps chosen the way of apparent obedience which, in reality, is disobedience. Because those who follow the new way, who follow the novelties, who attach themselves to new principles contrary to those taught us by Tradition, by all the Popes, by all the Councils, they are the ones who have chosen the way of disobedience.”
“It is sufficient to read the speeches which are made in our times to realize that those who accuse us of disobedience are those who do not follow the Popes, who do not follow the Councils, who, in reality, disobey.”
They have become monsters, accepting the most perverse and unholy abominations as compatible with “Catholicism,” while condemning one thing alone: what the saints and popes before John XXIII told us we must believe.
St. Pius V Made it Clear No Authority Can Legitimately Ban the Tridentine Mass. “Pope St. Pius V proclaimed in a solemn and definitive manner that, whatever might happen in the future, no one might ever prevent a priest from celebrating the Sacrifice of the Mass; and that all excommunications, all suspensions, all the punishments which a priest might undergo because he celebrated this Holy Sacrifice would be utterly null and void, in futuro, in perpetuum.”
We Can Thus Act With Clear Conscience. “Consequently, we have a clear conscience whatever may happen to us. If we are apparently disobedient, we are really obedient. This is our situation. And it is right for us to tell this, to explain it, because it is we who continue the Church. Really disobedient are those who corrupt the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacraments and our prayers, those who put the Rights of Man in the place of the Ten Commandments, those who transform the Credo.”
Their Attacks on Us Condemn Them. “It is quite evident that we are still in communion with the Church. There is a contradiction in their attitude which condemns them. They know perfectly well that we are in the right because we cannot be outside of truth when we simply continue to do what has been done for two thousand years, believing what has been believed for two thousand years. This is not possible.”
Our Salvation Depends Upon Adhering to Tradition. “Once again, we must repeat this sentence and continue to repeat it: Jesus Christus heri, hodie et in saecula. If I am with the Jesus Christ of yesterday I am with the Jesus Christ of today and of tomorrow. I cannot be with the Jesus Christ of yesterday without being with the Jesus Christ of tomorrow. And that is because our Faith is that of the past and that of the future. If we are not with the Faith of the past we are not with the Faith of the present, nor yet of the future. This is what we must always believe. This is what we must hold to at any price— our salvation depends upon it.”
In the many decades since this sermon, those following Tradition have not changed — they have continued to believe and practice what all the saints believed and practiced. Our Lord told us to judge by fruits, and we can see that the fruits of adhering to Tradition stand out as uniquely true, good, and beautiful in a world of filthy lies.
What about those who are “obedient” to the destroyers? They rapidly drift further away from what the Church has always taught, so that no right-thinking person can recognize them as Catholic. They have become monsters, accepting the most perverse and unholy abominations as compatible with “Catholicism,” while condemning one thing alone: what the saints and popes before John XXIII told us we must believe.
The crisis is even more of a mystery today with Francis and his Synod on Synodality, but the path of faithful Catholics is no longer uncertain: we must remain with Christ, so we must remain with what His Church has always taught and refuse to cooperate with its destruction.
In his 1977 sermon at Poitiers, Archbishop Lefebvre said that the crisis in the Church is an unfathomable mystery:
“Again: Jesus Christus heri, hodie et in saecula. And if today, by a mystery of Providence, a mystery which for us is unfathomable, incomprehensible, we are in apparent disobedience, in reality we are not disobedient but obedient.”
The crisis is even more of a mystery today with Francis and his Synod on Synodality, but the path of faithful Catholics is no longer uncertain: we must remain with Christ, so we must remain with what His Church has always taught and refuse to cooperate with its destruction. As Archbishop Lefebvre wrote in his 1974 Declaration, no authority on earth has the power to force us to abandon our Catholic Faith:
“No authority, not even the highest in the hierarchy, can force us to abandon or diminish our Catholic Faith, so clearly expressed and professed by the Church’s Magisterium for nineteen centuries.”
So long as we remain faithful to Christ and Tradition, we can be assured that we are truly obedient, no matter what Francis and the destroyers say. Indeed, if we ever find that Francis and his fellow destroyers approve of what we are doing, we can be absolutely certain that we are being truly disobedient to Christ and His Church. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
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